The Seeds of Time

Like the passion flower that only blooms for a short while, our love appears to be like the stars that form into a giant mass, only to combust and die shortly after exhausting itself. Like all the sweet peas, marigolds, sunflowers, and other common perennial flowers that bloom in the summer, we are like the shrubs themselves that return and become renewed every year, maybe with better well-being, brilliance and coloring. Some flowers, like the passion flower, may never bloom again, but their seeds lay dormant in the soil, with their roots bound to other shrubs and groundcovers who flourish.

During our year together, in the early spring after the last frost date, Silas and I volunteered to care for the community garden, where we cleaned up the weeds, dead plants and planted new bulbs and seeds, and prepared for blooms in the spring and summer season. We met through mutual friends, and I instantly felt drawn to him, like I had known him my whole life. We didn’t talk much, but through the comfortable silence, our shared understanding of many things and our reserved nature, I already felt like I could spend my entire life with him. 

We didn’t date immediately. We hung out in friend-group gatherings, from trivia nights, dance parties, theme nights, house parties, nightcaps, low-key hangouts at the house him and our mutual friends shared, and every time, we eventually gravitated toward each other, like two kids in our own world, who understood that silence was okay, and talked about similar interests in music, films, certain subject matters, observations, commentaries, discovering each other and the world together. We hated small talks but enjoyed the comfort and ease when it came to our small talks along with big conversations with each other. We toppled on one thought on top of each other, knowing it was ok if sometimes they don’t relate or have correlations, but we enjoyed spouting discoveries with each other. It felt like we were two lost souls, wandering around at night, willing to partake in any oddities, adventures thrown at us. 

We also shared similar ethos in environment protection and climate action; we weren’t full-fledged activists by any means, but with whatever free time we had, we liked to volunteer at our mutual friend’s organization that engaged and educated the multicultural community about best practices on sustainability and climate action through various outreaches, including park and infrastructure projects and classes; it also acted as a consultancy for local business owners and government. One of the projects was to build a community garden. I had a green thumb and enjoyed getting my hands dirty. Silas was an intellectual with a good and tender heart, but not a laborer at his core; he was good at following directions and assisting in small tasks, like filling up the garbage, digging and filling up soil, moving things around. The entire garden plot had already been designated, designed and approved. We were there to build and maintain the garden beds, decide the types of hearty, edible, pest-resistant plants, flowers and fruits and its positions, who’s responsible for what, effective ways to keep the garden watered and so forth. Carrots, turnips, red and green leaf lettuces, kales, onions, garlics, tomatoes, and herbs were thrown in the mix of suggestions, along with perennial flowers such as bluebell bellflowers, sweet peas, borages, nasturtiums, sunflowers, marigolds, daisies, and lupins. Planting vines on the trellis, arbor and pergolas, such as star jasmines and fragrance sweet box, were also suggested. 

With both of us stewing in our thoughts as others snagged their choices, we were randomly assigned to grow some boring vegetables, like red leaf lettuce and onion, which were surprisingly hard to grow and maintain. To be contrarians, we shouted randomly we’ll do artichoke! We also happened to have watched the same indie film featuring a plant that a girl broke into a crush’s house and grew, so we also shouted “...and…passion flower!” The leader and volunteers were none too thrilled because artichoke and passion flower were hard to grow in our Northeastern climate–but they were our responsibilities now.

The coalition also hosted community garden events to raise awareness of environmental health and the organization itself by hosting live music, open poetry and short stories on mic nights and also quaint evening soirées to celebrate the blossom of certain flowers that only bloomed for a day. On one particular evening, we celebrated the bloom of a daylily. Globe string lights were hung everywhere possible: fences, arbor, pergolas, wooden pallets, along with a few Rattan lanterns strewn about, emitting warm amber glow. There was a food and drink station at a long wooden rustic table near the front of the garden mostly filled with vegetarian, plant-based small bites, juice cocktails and mocktails, leveraging some of the vegetables and fruits that we harvested. A young local female musician was playing a mix of bluegrass, rock and Americana, filling the space like soft white fluffy pollen floating through the air with her expressive vibrato, sad and angst-ridden voice. Small, delicate chatters were complementing the music in the background and traveling between the garden beds, while katydids and crickets were coyly humming in the background. The musician was playing renditions of Fleetwood Mac, Neko Case and The Tallest Man on Earth, She unexpectedly sang the tune from the hauntingly beautiful Beth Gibbons (lead singer of Portishead) & Rustin Man’s song, “Mysteries:” 

God knows how I adore life

When the wind turns on the shores lies another day

I cannot ask for more

When the time bell blows my heart

And I have scored a better day

Well nobody made this war of mine

And the moments that I enjoy

A place of love and mystery

I'll be there anytime

Oh mysteries of love

Where war is no more

I'll be there anytime

(To listen to this song, here is the YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJrRVl7goLE)

Silas and I were tucked away at the back of the community garden, sandwiched in the corner between the shed and rain barrel and a row of flower beds set against the lattice fencing in front of us to the left. Her crisp, angelic voice sent shivers down our spine, birthing goosebumps on our skins. Our whole body and feet were unconsciously pointing toward each other, like we were protecting some kind of aura in the middle between us. Yet, we hesitated to look at each other as the musician sang on, pretending like the words and mood weren’t affecting us. However, Silas and my hands were slowly swaying, eventually colliding the middle, and I began inconspicuously rubbing the fleshy side of his left hand. After a long lingering moment that seemed to last a decade, he then slowly turned to me, looked on with his earnest soft gaze, leaned in, and moved in for the embrace. The kiss wasn’t anything passionate nor life changing: it was pure, tender, warm and awkward–just the way it was intended. After this moment, we went on to carry out this undefined relationship, where we weren’t really boyfriends and girlfriends, but we weren’t really just platonic friends. We never went on the traditional dates but hung out casually with nothing planned for the next. I had wanted to be close to Silas but I didn’t know how.

Being half French and fluent in it, after graduating from college, I decided to move to France for awhile for some international experience where my step dad's side of the family lived in Lyon and some small towns near it. My step dad's brother Mathéo had an import and export business, and I helped with the English and French translation. On the side, being an art major, I interned at small galleries, helping out with everything from being a gallery attendant to administrative art handling work. But I knew the United States was where I wanted to return eventually for the betterment of my career. Silas and I wrote to each other on and off, with him mostly initiating and writing impassive long emails about the happenings and goings.

There was a long period where we didn’t speak to each other, and that was normal. I had flings and dated different guys with one serious relationship, but that ended; none of the relationships lasted either because of my self-sabotage or I chose people who I knew wouldn’t last. After a few good years, I moved back to Worcester, Massachusetts, in hopes of continuing my work in the art gallery space. I finally landed a job as an assistant to the owner at a local medium-sized art gallery. Throughout my job search and acclimating back home, Silas and I hadn’t written. I rarely had the opportunity to miss him or think about him–or maybe I didn’t allow myself to.

Silas and I eventually reconnected again through our mutual friend Leyla, who happened to invite the both of us to a group outing at a friend’s exhibition at an art gallery walk in downtown Worcester. Polite, reserved, easy as ever between the two of us, it was like nothing had changed, no years had gone past; we wanted to stay glued by each other’s side forever. We hadn’t kissed or had sex yet since our reconnection. After a few low-key, impromptu hangouts, his intentions started to change, and the tone turned serious, albeit droll: he started asking me a trite question like what my favorite restaurant was, and he was actually planning the evening way in advance. I still didn’t think much of it. After dinner at one of my favorite bistros, we ventured to the aquarium, surveying a bunch of sea and nocturnal creatures in various cylinder tanks under the dark indigo glow on our way to the whales and dolphin sound room, where it was completely pitch black except for the ceiling dotted with glowing stars. We laid on the leather lounge chairs next to each other, listening to their music of the sea creatures, when he suddenly turned to me, in the same earnest, pure and otherworldly gaze he laid on me three years ago, and said Can I kiss you, Amie?

Our first year together was filled with lust, rapture, and endless talks and banters. We regularly visited the community garden every week where we were responsible for growing the artichokes, onions, red leaf lettuces, and passion flowers. All of them required bi-weekly visits where we provided and kept fine tuning the right amount of water, sunlight, soil, temperature, nutrients, fertilizer for them to germinate and bloom. Somehow, we were successful in the endeavor; all the plants started to germinate with buds showing. The passion flower, typically native to Florida and more tropical climates, grew surprisingly faster than the rest and blossomed first in the summer. It needed full sun for long periods of time, however this particular lavender passion flower miraculously took off. Sitting at the back of the community garden, commanding attention, the flowering lavender was particularly vivid, erect, majestic and proud, with its five petals on the upper layer and five sepals beneath, and many pinkish to purple filaments sprouting above the petals. The center of the nectar looked like a helipad with a stem shooting out with the ovary in the middle, surrounded by a ring of yellow pollen sacs suspended above. The passion flower typically dies after a day, and if lucky, it may last for a short while under the right conditions and care. With us being in sync at the best of times, we communicated seamlessly and did the delicate, innocuous dance around miscommunication, with every mishap, small victories and squabble taken as endearing. I took charge of how to care for the shrubs, and he carried out some of the manual labor work. After all that was said and done, linking our waists together by our arms, we stepped back and looked on proudly at our finished products, savoring the fruits of our labor, but above all, the moments of connection we had forged, our shared experience together.

And then came the two of us slowly decimating the relationship, burning off the bark of a tree to fiery crisp one by one, then down to the sapwood, heartwood and to the center–the pith with no mercy. He was the receiver of all my fits of rage, moods, emotions caused by my insecurity and hopelessness in the place of love. Him, having grown up in a single-family home with not much stability, were not equipped with communication skills, nor did he know how to show love. We were in the cycle of lust, rapture, anxiety, self-sabotaging and fuckups. We fought like animals, made up, and repeated cycles of the same fights. We were like two ships passing each other in the night: he didn’t know how to show love anymore than he knew how, and we both lacked the communication skills to traverse and resolve our arguments together effectively and productively.

Our relationship came crashing down as fast as the passion flower that died shortly after it had lived brilliantly. The repeated arguments, projections of our own feelings and trauma, limited ability to communicate at times when good communication was needed took its toll and stripped the relationship bare. We single handedly destroyed the relationship that was the purest at most. The relationship ended as ambiguously as it had started. We were both traveling for our work, and our texts and facetiming were slowing down. We eventually had the “talk,” one that neither of us wanted to have but one that necessitated somebody brave enough to take charge and pull the plug.

I returned to the states next spring to early summer and re-engaged myself in the community garden work without Silas. For whatever the reason may be, the passion flower never germinated and returned to its former glory–not even the other seeds we planted. However, I kept attending to the artichokes, onions, lettuces, sweet peas, all of which were progressing along nicely, sprouting, poking out of the soil and mulch. It wasn’t all fruitful; some plants didn’t sprout or bloom, some didn’t look healthy, some died quickly after blossoming. I returned often and ever season to tend to them, ensuring that I made adjustments and improvements each time as needed, whether it was testing out different nutrients and the amounts of it; changing out the soil because both feral and domestic cats had wandered in the garden and peed on the soil; pruning out the dead ones; adjusting the water amount or even moving the beds to a shaded area depending on the amount of rainfall, heat or dryness. I poured my utmost dedication and attention to the common shrubs to the point of obsession–to the point where other volunteers ended up asking if I could tend to their assigned plots while I was there anyway. I wanted my shrubs to continue producing healthy greens and purifying the air, the earth; attracting the bees, butterflies, even hummingbirds, for this endeavor is the bedrock of my life–in more ways than one. The passion flower seeds and roots are still buried under the soil–they have never gone away or died completely. Perhaps under the proper conditions and care, they may blossom one day again, and they may come out looking different than the first majestic one.