Episode 2 of Pen Pals is live! We talk about where we’ve been published, how we got there, and Krisserin tells us about the agent who replied a year later. Listen where you listen, and rate it. And write to us! Let us know what you want to hear about at officialpenpalspod@gmail.com.
We are obsessed with growth in this house. Not our own, not even the baby’s really, but the growth of our plants. We are constantly commenting on it to one another.
“Did you see the thanksgiving cactus is in bloom again?”
“Did you notice the fern’s shoot has reached the beam?”
“The new monstera leaf has unfurled.”
There is constant growth in our house, which is not surprising given there are over 70 plants, but it does at times still delight us given that most of these plants are tropical and we live in an alpine valley with winds so strong they knock the house down to 50°. Not exactly la pura vida for plants.
Regardless, they thrive. Some of them are enormous. Some are so old they’ve not only graduated college but gotten their master’s and bought a house. Some of them started as clippings less than a year ago and have already vined over 12 feet (looking at you, inchplant.)
But others, well, they wait.
Notably (because they are both of notable size) our corn plant and our bird of paradise.
This is fine. They are not browning or drooping. They do not have pests or fungi. They do not show signs of death. I have a cup, and there is water in it.
To Ben, they are essentially dead, and the funeral procession of previously dead plants is marching invisibly past our shins to their hallowed and hollowed roots.
Ben would say this is an unfair characterization of what he thinks and I would say write your own newsletter, Ben.
I didn’t imagine being a person with this many plants, but god I want more. They’re so mystical! They hold so much history and power! They’re also beautiful and quirky and particular! And I know that “particularness” is what drives people kind of crazy, but it’s something I’ve come to cherish. Like cats or the French, plants take a minute.
One of the clients I work for addresses concerns in children’s mental health, and they’re trying to get the industry to build a ground up model for children’s care rather than just applying adult methods of mental health relief. One of the care methods they caution against is jumping—jumping to outpatient therapy, jumping to a crisis center, jumping to medication. Sometimes these are absolutely the right treatments, but mental health is health, and the first step is to actually step back. Pause. Do a whole health diagnostic. Look at the child’s environment, routines, nutrition, sleep, etc.
It’s not dissimilar with plants. It’s easy to look at our bird of paradise’s lack of growth and think, “ah I’ll just pop a little fertilizer in. That’ll make it grow.” But that plant was rescued from a dark corner in November and then repotted. It doesn’t need fertilizer outside of growing season, it needs a second to settle. It experienced trauma, and it’s only been three months.
So instead of lack of growth, I look at it as lack of death. It’s here. It’s green. We’re checking the soil, we’re wrapping tightly coiled leaf shoots in wet paper towels, and we’re letting it bask in the sun. I think of this bird of paradise like a horse that spent its life in a stall. I’m not panicking because it’s not running. I’m watching it stand in the sun, eyes shut, learning to live.
The Log
If you missed it, my Desk Tour
“To use any of the Big Three is to clock into my shift at the engagement factory”
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl was fun, as you might have guessed
I’m also reading Victim by Andrew Boryga, Lost Horizon by James Hilton, and my first print issue of Never Too Small.
And, for the sake of honesty, I had a dream that compelled me to buy a lottery ticket. I’m not proud.
The Chop
We’re in-between visitors this week, and we need to do a kitchen restock. This house doesn’t have a pantry, so Ben built a large open cabinet shortly after we moved in.
We are always reorganizing it, and it always, well… anything you are constantly reorganizing is inevitably also constantly turning into a mess. It is the Zen Garden of the kitchen. In fact, the kitchen is all Zen Gardens. Everything is made clean to made a mess to made clean again.
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