I can't really keep plants alive. I bring them into my home with the promise of light and water, cool from the faucet, and an easy place to shine. I have visions of green geranium leaves crawling like sunbeams, and cushiony aloes, plump with medicine, and red pots teeming with herbs whose aromas battle one another for space in the air.
But I can't really keep plants alive.
I smother them at first. A helicopter mom, hovering and feeding and anxious. I fear they will suffer thirst, and so I make them drink. I am proud because they don't have to ask. It works for the cats- they love me most in the moments before they feel a meow might be necessary. But if anything is more fickle than a cat, it's cilantro, and I can't really keep plants alive.
I move from over-attention to near neglect, wounded from rejection. I avert my eyes when I walk by them. They have asked me for space. But if there is anything more fickle than a cat, it is cilantro, and they are wounded as well. Like a girl who just broke up with a boy so he might care more, their heads hang low and moping. Their fingers curl into delicate fists, for sadness and not for fighting. I bet they'd weep if they had water enough for tears.
Tough love does not work for plants, however. And I can't really keep plants alive.
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