Treading on the tulips...
I have decided to once again try to grow a kitchen herb garden, and I feel exceedingly guilty about it. I have planted oregano, cilantro, and basil (the herbs that I use more than any other while cooking - you know, Italian, Cuban, and Thai…) in what I have been assured is really, really good dirt in little egg cups on the window sill. I have watered them in accordance with direct-from-the-All-About-Herbs-book-instructions. I have talked to them in a reassuring manner. And this morning, their little herbaceous heads began to poke up through the packed-just-right top-quality soil.
All of this is good - very good - but my guilt stems from the carnage that I know lies ahead.
You see, right now they are intrepid little fellows, opening their little leaflings to the sun, all full of hope and chlorophyll, with dreams of being transplanted into the shiny window-box… like tiny green lambs being led to slaughter, because I have a black thumb. I know I’ve talked about this before. This is not a “my plants don’t really thrive” black thumb - this is a “lay waste to the village to destroy the evidence” kind of black thumb, and while I am not proud of it, I have accepted it as reality (which, rather outside of my character, for some reason doesn’t keep me from trying). I have killed indoor plants, outdoor plants, and everything in between. I have stripped a tiny Norfolk pine bare of needles in just under a week (and let me tell you, those are a BITCH to vacuum), I have murdered (though I call it involuntary fernslaughter, we know what it is) a ten-year-old five-and-a-half-foot tall ferny thing which had survived three moves and six repottings before me (and which I stalwartly continued to try to water for six months after it expired), and I once killed a cactus garden by mere proximity. Do you have any idea how hard it is for your average Joe to kill a cactus garden? They don’t even need any attention! They don’t DO anything but sit there on your desk and cact! And occasionally when you remember, you pour that last little remnant of three-day-old cold coffee still sitting in the bottom of the cup in them to meet the “water” requirement! I am a flora failure!
And once I have failed, then begins the grieving process. First, I deny that the plant has actually died. I continue to speak cheerily to it, often breaking into song more frantically than usual. Then I blame the plant. Sometimes I shout at the plant, conspicuously questioning its hybrid, and sometimes I just pointedly ignore it. While I’m doing this, I will make deals with myself. I will promise that next time I will work harder. Next time I will be even perkier in their presence. I will loudly offer my soul to the devil at random times in exchange for the ability to grow thriving plants (he’s never taken me up on it, for the record). Even once I come to the realization that it really is over, it still takes ages to work up the nerve to carry the carcass to the garbage and pitch it in, and I usually have to mix myself a stiff drink after.
So shine on, my little seedlings. May your tragically short lives support some higher poetic purpose, and may you eventually find your spot in the window-box of heaven, where it’s always sunny and a balmy seventy-five degrees and the rain comes with Miracle-Gro built right in.
All of this is good - very good - but my guilt stems from the carnage that I know lies ahead.
You see, right now they are intrepid little fellows, opening their little leaflings to the sun, all full of hope and chlorophyll, with dreams of being transplanted into the shiny window-box… like tiny green lambs being led to slaughter, because I have a black thumb. I know I’ve talked about this before. This is not a “my plants don’t really thrive” black thumb - this is a “lay waste to the village to destroy the evidence” kind of black thumb, and while I am not proud of it, I have accepted it as reality (which, rather outside of my character, for some reason doesn’t keep me from trying). I have killed indoor plants, outdoor plants, and everything in between. I have stripped a tiny Norfolk pine bare of needles in just under a week (and let me tell you, those are a BITCH to vacuum), I have murdered (though I call it involuntary fernslaughter, we know what it is) a ten-year-old five-and-a-half-foot tall ferny thing which had survived three moves and six repottings before me (and which I stalwartly continued to try to water for six months after it expired), and I once killed a cactus garden by mere proximity. Do you have any idea how hard it is for your average Joe to kill a cactus garden? They don’t even need any attention! They don’t DO anything but sit there on your desk and cact! And occasionally when you remember, you pour that last little remnant of three-day-old cold coffee still sitting in the bottom of the cup in them to meet the “water” requirement! I am a flora failure!
And once I have failed, then begins the grieving process. First, I deny that the plant has actually died. I continue to speak cheerily to it, often breaking into song more frantically than usual. Then I blame the plant. Sometimes I shout at the plant, conspicuously questioning its hybrid, and sometimes I just pointedly ignore it. While I’m doing this, I will make deals with myself. I will promise that next time I will work harder. Next time I will be even perkier in their presence. I will loudly offer my soul to the devil at random times in exchange for the ability to grow thriving plants (he’s never taken me up on it, for the record). Even once I come to the realization that it really is over, it still takes ages to work up the nerve to carry the carcass to the garbage and pitch it in, and I usually have to mix myself a stiff drink after.
So shine on, my little seedlings. May your tragically short lives support some higher poetic purpose, and may you eventually find your spot in the window-box of heaven, where it’s always sunny and a balmy seventy-five degrees and the rain comes with Miracle-Gro built right in.