Living Metaphors

My patent neglect of living things should really come as no surprise to anyone who has ever given me a house plant. Green things always seem to die on me, which may have something to do with the fact that I don’t water them.  Back when Dylan and I were just friends, he gave me a lemon tree. He really ought to have known better, but I gratefully accepted it and stuck it on the window ledge.

There, I thought to myself. The gift of photosynthesis and all that. This is a living metaphor about growing relationships.

The lemon tree died pretty quickly, so that last part wasn’t exactly true, but I guess there was something sort of poetic about the way its edges gently browned and curled.

We have another lemon tree, now. It sits on the mantle and Dylan waters the thing with enough regularity that I toy with turning it into a poem once more, but simply can’t be bothered to do so.

Here is the thing: cold weather and dark days turn me unrecognizable. This is a certainty within my life, one of many that I can list off in a cold and clinical way. For example:

My plants die.
I will unabashedly order chocolate milk at restaurants.
Cold weather and dark days turn me unrecognizable.
I put things in “safe places” so I won’t lose them, and I can never remember where those safe places are.
My feet are always cold.

I haven’t yet decided if there is a point to this blog entry, but you should know that there probably isn’t one. If you want a house update, I’m sorry to tell you that there isn’t too much happening to the Little Pink House these days. Dylan is systematically dismantling the bathroom, but there’s no room for me in that 3x3 box, so I stare out the window, half-heartedly place lost things in their original homes, and think about dead lemon trees.

Sometimes I write. Not often.

Yesterday was the first real snow of the season, but it didn’t stick around for long. My phone tells me that it’s 30 degrees warmer in London than it is here. I’m not sure why, but the thought pleases me. 

While it was snowing, Dylan watered and repotted the overwhelming host of plants downstairs that he keeps alive with minimal effort. Most of them had been trapped in tiny pots for months, and their roots were snarled and tangled. He gently coaxed them into submission and patted them into their new homes while I read.

He is patient and reassuring and does not mind that my feet are cold.

I’m still not quite sure what I am trying to say. Sometimes I get so overwhelmed with love that things stop making sense. When this happens, I remind myself that there is frost on the window, but things are still growing.