 
|
||||
              
|
Wednesday, December 02, 1998 By Samantha Bennett
Here's something for your Thanksgiving table," Mom said. With some difficulty, she handed me a tree in a dish.
It was a very small tree, with shiny dark green leaves and pink blossoms, in a pretty blue dish. "It's a bonsai," she explained. "It won't get any bigger."
Not if it lives with me, it won't.
I wasn't expecting a gift. The holidays hadn't started yet. And of all the gifts I was not expecting, I was especially not expecting a living plant. Among the things I inherited from my father are a facility with the language, pasty skin and the Black Thumb.
My dad could kill any form of plant life inside of two weeks. First, the flowers would turn black and fall off, then the leaves. Like a truly creative serial killer, he found many ways to do in his victims: drowning, starvation, exposure, animal attack. I can remember him assiduously misting the ceramic pots he had hung from a rod inside the large living room window, day after day, until everything was dead.
I, too, have had plants from time to time, but I couldn't live with the cruelty. I don't buy them anymore. If someone gives me one, I reluctantly take care of it until its inevitable demise, watering it, talking to it, encouraging it to go toward the light. Leafy things would have a longer life in the back of a van with Jack Kevorkian than they do with me.
I've killed flowers, foliage plants, even herbs. The only form of vegetation that will coexist with me - besides whatever little science fair project I've got going in the back recesses of the fridge - is a very tough little philodendron in my living room. There used to be other plants in the same pot with it, but they're all dead now. If this philodendron were a human being, it would live under a bridge, chain-smoke and have a pierced nipple. It might even rob convenience stores.
And I'm glad it can fend for itself, because in addition to the Black Thumb, I've developed a lifestyle that isn't very conducive to nurturing. My typical evening is to get off work about 7, go to an exercise class for an hour or two, come home, nuke something, consume it while watching TV (I like comedy: "South Park," "Ally McBeal" and the 11 o'clock news) and hit the sack, sometimes all without taking my jacket off.
There was a time in my life, not so long ago, when I was actually interested in staying home and nurturing something. But the guys I dated, who found words like "responsibility," "commitment" and especially "sacrifice" so obscene they were trying to develop Internet filters to block them, finally persuaded me to see things their way. They were right - it was so liberating! I became self-centered and freedom-loving, unwilling to tolerate anything that limits me. Which may be why I'm not dating those guys anymore.
Oh, sure, I won't be able to go on like this. I'm over 30 now, so with each passing year, the yearning grows harder to ignore. Single women know what I mean. It's hardwired into us. Eventually, I'm going to have to get a cat.
Mom called me when I got back to Pittsburgh to tell me she forgot to put the directions in the box. A plant that comes with directions?
"Check it every day; the soil should feel moist. If the heat is on in your apartment you should mist it." (Note to self: Purchase misting bottle.) "It should get some direct sun every day. To water it, run water in your kitchen sink and put the tree in to drink what it needs. Once a week during the flowering season, give it a solution of standard plant food." (Note to self: Purchase plant food.)
"Every six months or so, you have to pull it up out of the dish and trim the root ball. And pruning is very important. You have to prune it."
(Note to self: Uh-oh. Do I have to buy something to prune it with? Where am I going to put all this stuff? Can I just do it with a kitchen knife or a pair of scissors or my car keys? How do I know what to prune? Is that philodendron laughing?)
It's not that it's not a lovely gift. But to be honest, if I'd wanted this level of responsibility, I could have arranged to get pregnant.
Hmmm. ... maybe Mom's trying to tell me something.
Next she'll be sporting a T-shirt urging everyone to "Ask me about my grand- tree."
Samantha Bennett can be reached by e-mail at sbennett@post-gazette.com.
|
|||
