A parable

I repotted some plants today, unpacking their cramped twisted roots and easing them into the fresh dirt lining the larger ceramic pots I'd dug out of a box in the shed. Some hadn't been repotted in years, I realized, yet they'd survived, if not thrived (the jade plant being a mysterious exception given the particular neglect it has endured) in the many, varying spaces I'd put them over the years.

Over so many moves I've managed to bring along a few plants each time. One of my most heartbreaking moments when preparing to leave California was realizing that I would have to leave behind all of my outdoor plants and most of the indoors ones, too. This was the most luxurious collection of greenery and flora I'd ever managed to cultivate -- both because of the mild winters, which let me keep many plants outdoors where they really wanted to be, and because I was sure I was finally home and so I didn't hold back from sending down roots, figuratively and literally. Outdoors I had bougainvilleas -- such a strangely opulent plant, with its showers of neon blossom-like bracts -- and huge green elephant ears and fuschias hung carefully in moist shady corners, and two huge ficus trees in pots at the front entry, where I also had different ferns and cyclamen and amaryllis planted in the thin strip of earth between the driveway and the entryway. In the front yard, I'd just planted an avocado tree that would be bearing fruit in another few years. Around the side, what was a wasted strip between our house and the next became a fragrant haven of jasmine, more ferns (since it was the northeast corner of the lot), impatiens, and ivies. Inside I had hanging plants and small potted plants and, in my bright living room, opulent floor specimens I'd carefully cultivated for years, hoping for just such a sunny space.

We decided to move to Denver rather hastily, and although I thought I'd be able to take most of the indoor and a few of the outdoor plants with me, the realities of packing everything, but everything, in such a short time soon overwhelmed me. So I gave most of the plants away to friends, who promised to tend them carefully, and left most of the outdoor plants for whoever would be so lucky as to buy and live in my house next. I just couldn't leave those two beautiful ficus trees, though. I knew I was going to a cold grey place, and I thought the trees would keep my head above water during what I sensed would be a difficult adjustment. I managed to shove them and a few other potted plants, mostly small ones, into the moving truck just before my husband slammed and bolted the door. On the rainy November night we left, I had to sit in the driveway for just a few more moments to look at my house, my almost-overgrown entryway, my side garden where the hummingbirds would return in the morning for more nectar and song. And I cried. In fact, I still cry, more than two years later, thinking about being uprooted so unexpectedly, remembering that moment when I lost faith that I'd ever settle and not have to tear up or leave behind so much.

We moved three more times after Denver, and I think I still have four or five of the plants I brought with me. I lost a small azalea, a philodendron that had once hung from ceiling to floor, and a few others to the dry indoor heat. The ficus trees survived the first move but both perished when we moved away from Denver, killed by a hard overnight freeze as they waited in the moving truck for us to finish packing. That hit me hard. Not just because they were still regal but because they had stood at the portal to what I'd thought was Home, and I was saving them for my next real home.

This afternoon, as I repotted three survivors of my tortuous travels, I noticed that one, a small ficus that had never grown much since we left California, had very little root system left. The thready tangle that dangled from the plant's base was brown and dry and mineral-caked, and as I picked at it I realized most of the roots had been dead for some time. Somehow the tree had managed to take in just enough sustenance to keep the appearance of life, but over the years it had been dying, just underneath the surface, and with its recent shedding of most its leaves, which I'd attributed to temperature fluctuation, it seemed to be giving up. This small tree had once thrived on my dresser in the big bedroom of our California house. I remember wondering why it stopped growing after we left, but figured it just needed a stable home and, now, more space to grow. It still looks alive, but it can't grow now, its shriveled roots too long neglected, no longer able to take in nourishment. I've kind of known that for a while but hoped it wasn't true, that somehow I could revive it. Now I must decide: let it linger, keep trying and hoping to save it even as it continues to slip toward its inevitable demise, or bury it in a corner of the vegetable garden. I know what I must do, and it just goes against my deep drive to keep nurturing, keep things growing, keep the green light of hope alive. But it's time to let it go, along with all that has gone before it, and work on bringing the rest of my garden back to life.