Monstera
There's this writer, a friendly acquaintance eI've always admired. I've thought of her often over the years, not just because I enjoy her writing, but over the ten plus years I've known her, I really admire her way of living.
Until recently, she was single and living alone in a little rented house not too far from me. We missed each other at Stanford, but I heard from friends that she was always organizing weekend trips, renting houses with pools so the other fellows could hang out. After our two years were up, people were always fighting for the death for these teaching jobs but she didn't need to money, so she just wrote instead. She wrote for travel magazines and then wrote three novels, each advance bigger than the last.
The point is, she didn't waste anytime wallowing around in self-doubt and self-deprecation, which is my speciality. She didn't punish herself for not having things, until she eventually got it.
Over the pandemic, she gave me a clipping of her Monstera plant. It was just a leaf that had sprouted some roots, so I wasn't expecting it to necessarily make it. However, I wanted a constant reminder of her around, so I accepted and kept it in the shade in my front yard.
Now the monstera is one of the healthiest plants I have ever raised. Its leaves are shine with health, as big as my entire torso. It grows slowly but vibrantly. I realize, that all other monstera plants I had before this might not even be the same species as this one--just like we might be the same at all.