A Plant Story

Back in 2002 my mom gave me her Feng Shui plant to take care of. She had just moved back to the area and was living with a friend. For whatever reason, she didn't feel comfortable having the plant in her friend's home so she gave it to me. Over the course of time I had the plant I would say I killed it however when mom finally got it back it wasn't exactly in a "Feng Shui" state of being. I had managed to damage said plant and wasn't sure there was much hope for it. Thankfully, mom was able to revive the plant.

Why do I bring this up? Well, I brought home not one . . . not two . . . but three plants this past week. (Yes, I'm just glutton for punishment.)

I'm not exactly sure what possessed me to do this. I've been questioning myself even since I first pulled the plants out of the respective box they were in. After some thought, I have decided the first motivating factor is that they were free. However, that doesn't mean I should have taken three with me - does it!? It's only been a couple days since I acquired said plants. The first day they were set aside in a safe local so I could take them home at a later date. When they finally did make it in to my home they sat for another day. That's about 48 hours without attention or watering. Momentarily they are sitting on little glass plates I found because I don't have proper saucers to absorb the extra water.

So now I have to care for these plant, but honestly I don't even know what kind of they are. All I know is that they are a magenta color. I believe that was my second motivating factor. Since this is the case I plan to take a picture of said plant and talk to someone who can give me a clue on 1) What type of plant it is and 2) How to take care of it.

All this leads me to what someone said to me after I went on and on about how I normally don't take plants into my home because I kill them. They said, "Wow! That's very optimistic of you." Optimistic is the key word in that remark. For a moment I didn't understand why they said that. After thinking about it for awhile I realized it was sorta optimistic of me. I guess somewhere deep inside I believe that despite my past inability to keep plants alive I'm willing to give it another try with the belief that this time around will be different. Does that mean optimism is my third motivating factor? Even more important, does this mean I truly am an internal optimist as I often joke, but don't show? Or, maybe I just felt the need to schlep three plants into my home knowing that in the near future I'd be pitching them. Hmmm. . . .

In the end I guess the only thing I know for sure is that I'm now going to count the days these things survive here. Personally, I don't give them more than a couple of weeks. I guess only time will tell.


Until later . . .