I cultivated a jungle within the confines of my California bedroom. Saucer-sized hoyas, snaking Sempervirens, silvery Scindapsus wove their way from around the tabletop up the blinds. It was a snapshot of the tropical somewheres. My corner was a biome. My biome.
When I left for college, I placed my plants under my mom’s care. Caught up in the excitement, I left her with sparse instructions: water when dry, prune if browning, and fertilize oh-so-sparingly.
Not even two months later, I came home to a murder scene—my Philodendron “Florida” had been mutilated by our blameless chihuahua mix, the succulents were overwatered and rotted, and my pothos was yellowing with an unknown nutrient deficiency. My initial horror manifested in audible frustration. “What did I tell you about overwatering??”
I was wrong to be upset. Designating her godmother of my plants was a recognition of the people—not the things—I valued most. My mother showered the plants with her rice wash water. When the family was fed, the plants were fed. Now, as I mix my salmon rice bowls from the TD “Greens and Grains” line (which I waited in for 10 minutes), I think about sustenance. The seaweed, hand-crumbled. The chipotle mayo, neatly drizzled. There is no rice water, and no plants are fed. But, this, too, is a source of sustenance.
I think about whether my plants are alive and well. I think about family, and the water of food and love.
