When the right plant in the right place isn't
(Not really about plants. But you knew that.)
I haven’t watered my flower box in over a week. In August, if I don’t water it daily (or almost daily) everything in it will die. I’d like to tell you the reason I haven’t written anything here since early August is that I was too busy watering, but that wouldn’t be quite true. Or even close to true. It only takes a few minutes a day to water the box. But it feels true.
Most years, the box under my kitchen window is a source of joy. I buy about 10 annuals and plant them in mid-spring. Usually, they thrive all summer long. Every time I look out the window while I’m making meals, I get a little jolt of happy. Every time I walk or drive up to the house, I get that same jolt. That spark has always felt more than worth the time and money it has cost me to fill the box with flowers and keep them alive.
Not this year, though. My usual methods haven’t worked. I think I’m on my third set of summer plants? I’m not sure how to count; I kept replacing them as they died, and they didn’t all die at once. Back in June, after some died, I bought flowers that I’ve always had great success with—a variety of something like a miniature petunia, with bright, colorful booms—but many of them perished. I blamed it on a spate of 90+ degree days right after I planted. I put new ones in as soon as the weather became more reasonable, but most of those withered into crunchy ghosts of the plants they had been, too. Then I switched to some other flower with lots of tiny white petals. Those haven’t died, but most of the time at least half of the tiny petals are brown, so they generally look like they’re on their death bed. For awhile I tried meticulously pinching off the dead petals, but it was painstaking work with almost no reward. The plants still looked ugly. I hate them.
Somewhere in early August, I decided I wasn’t going to spend any more money on new plants for the box this year, nor was I going to tend the plants beyond watering them. I was going to let the box be what it will, even if I don’t much like what it is. While the white flowers are continuing to live without much change, the coleus—my anchor plants—have taken off with a vengeance. They are towering over the puny white flowers like 8th grade girls over their male counterparts, all leggy and fierce. One has bolted in a way that reminds me of our failed backyard lettuce, with a long stalk shooting up from its head. They fill half the kitchen window with their height, but they feel out of control. There’s no little jolt of happy when I see them.
I suppose that’s why I haven’t watered the box. That, and life has felt largely untenable for this entire interminable year, and the weather has changed. We have been blessedly in the 70’s most days, some with clouds. Clouds! We’ve even had rain; I felt my soul expand like one of those magic sponges one morning when I woke up to wet pavement. The rain doesn’t help the box any, though, because it hangs under the eaves. It’s dry as tinder, I know, but everything in it is still alive. I’ll probably water it soon. It’s just been so nice to get a little break, to be a little less vigilant about keeping everything alive.
I told one of my therapists last week (yes, I have more than one) that I want to stop living on hold, waiting for the crisis in my life to resolve so that I can get back to something that feels like normal. “I want to be back in my life,” I said. “I’m tired of feeling as if I’m just existing through time out of time.”
He asked me what that would look like. I think that might be the wrong question? I’m more interested in what it would feel like.
It would feel like the ground is solid under my feet again. It would feel like I could look toward the future and the landscape there would be familiar. Maybe I wouldn’t know all the buildings in it, and certainly not the colors of paint on them, but I would know the major structures and geographical features. The tall firs would still be standing, as would the mountains they grow upon. I would feel calm, present, and grounded. Upon such a sure foundation, I would care again about small things I usually enjoy caring about—trying a new recipe, doing a good puzzle, watering the flower box.
“What things would you want to do, what would you have in your life?” the therapist asked.
I couldn’t quite answer that in the session, but because I have always been a good student, I made a list after the appointment ended. It was full of things that once filled me with joy, like the flower box flowers.
“The thing is,” I said to my husband, later, “those things feel like consolation prizes. They are frosting, which is great when you have cake, but when there’s no cake….”
I have been trying to eat frosting with no cake for quite a while now, and I have no stomach for it. I find myself craving roasted vegetables, pungent cheeses, crusty bread.
“I am so angry,” I said to the therapist, “because I thought I had a solid foundation, one that helped me withstand all the other things life threw at me. And now that foundation is gone. I want it back. I want to rebuild it, but I can’t do it by myself and I’m so tired of waiting for and supporting someone else’s changes and being so damn understanding all the time.”
“You haven’t lost your foundation,” he said gently. “You are your foundation. You are the only thing that can hold you.”
I know it seems like the plants were the problem. They were the thing that kept dying. But what does it mean when what has been the right plant in the right place for years suddenly isn’t? Doesn’t it mean that the plant is not the problem, but is instead a symptom of one?
It occurred to me back in July that perhaps the issue with the flower box was the soil. Perhaps it was depleted, I thought. I haven’t put new soil into the box in more than five years. Perhaps, I thought, I should take out all the plants and dump that soil in the backyard where we put grass clippings. Perhaps I should get new soil and start over.
Oh, but that was a hard thought. It made me feel inadequate. I should learn how to compost, I told myself, make my own good soil. Or learn how to fertilize. Do something more than just add water. Because of my discomfort (and the effing, intolerable heat), I turned away from that thought about the soil. I let the flowers continue to struggle, wither, fail.
I’m seeing it differently today, now that the weather has turned and we’re on the cusp of a new season. I’m sure the soil could be redeemed by some other person who knows how to repair soil, but I don’t have that knowledge and those skills today. Today, though, I could go to a garden center and simply buy a bag of new soil. Maybe that is just fine? Maybe it is fine to get new soil from the nursery, just as I sometimes get convenience foods from the grocery store rather than making everything from scratch. I don’t have enough time to make everything from scratch. And if I’m really going to go down that road, wouldn’t I eventually have to grow all my own food? Butcher my own chickens if I want chicken soup? Every life is lived in a never-ending negotiation with resources, and none of ours are pure.
Still, relying on someone else for soil that way feels a bit like not being my own foundation—or it did, until a few days after the therapy appointment, when I wondered if I just haven’t been looking at any of this the right way. Of course the soil is crucial, and I’ve long thought of soil as the foundation of a garden, but when it comes to my flower box and the joy it can provide, isn’t the box the true foundation? Isn’t it the box that holds everything?
And isn’t it true that we all need to rely on others some of the time, in some ways? We can’t all do everything and be experts at everything. Can’t I lean on the work of those who know and create good soil? (I mean, I don’t want to butcher my own chickens! And I love chicken soup!) Maybe some of them read these words I put out into the world, and maybe this thing that I can do will bring them (or someone else, because I don’t think this has to be a straight exchange) joy in the way their soil work will bring joy to me. Wouldn’t we have a better world for more of us if we could embrace interdependence, rather than rugged individualism?
Yes, I think, it would be, and so I’ve decided: I am going to put in new dirt and get new plants. I’m going to do it because I can and because I am unwilling to give up those jolts of joy. I am keeping the box. It’s mine, and it’s sturdy, and it can hold any number of plants I choose to grow in it. I am going to put the joyless plants in the compost bin, let the city take them away and put them to better use. I am going to plant new plants, again, for the coming season, one that I’ve always loved more than summer anyway, with its infernal heat.
I am choosing the foundation. I am choosing interdependence. I am choosing joy.
Even fall can be a season for new growth.
One (big) way I’m tending to my foundation:
Sleep divorce is a thing. A good thing. Or you can call it a sleep alliance if you don’t like that terminology. I’ve struggled with sleep issues for years. At a recent visit with my occupational therapist, she shared this graphic with me:
Each level of cognitive task relies on the task below it, and the whole thing starts with energy, which is impacted by the things below the pyramid. I’m paying attention to all of those things, but the biggest change I’ve made has been to sleep. I’m sleeping in our guest room now. We bought a better mattress for it, and I have the kind of blankets that work best for me on it. I am sleeping more—and more soundly—than I have since my kids were born. I got a 10+ hour night recently, a kind of thing I’d have thought was impossible as recently as a month ago. Last night, I only got up to use the bathroom once. IYKYK
Some ways I’m feeding the soil:
I’m retraining my brain to pay attention like it’s 1999. I miss my old brain, the one that could read for hours. The one that had lots of good ideas. The one that craved learning. We did an accidental phone-free Saturday recently, and it felt really good. In the article below, I especially appreciate author Yana Yuhai’s explanation of the neuroscience behind our compulsions to scroll (“Our attention spans haven’t disappeared, they’ve been retrained”), and her suggestions for ways to get our attention back, none of which are dogmatic or dramatic (“make focus feel like a soft return, not a hard reset”). Neuroplasticity for the win.
I’m beginning a 100-day journaling challenge. Earlier in my life I was an avid journal writer. I’ve tried various ways to return to that practice over the years (hello, Morning Pages), but none have stuck. I recently came across Suleika Jaoud’s The Book of Alchemy, which uses short essays (from so many writers I appreciate) as springboard to journaling prompts. This has what feels like the right amount of freedom and structure, and reading always primes the pump of writing for me.
I was swayed by Jaoud’s argument that journaling’s “physical and mental benefits have been extolled in study after study—everything from reducing symptoms of depression and anxiety to improving working memory and strengthening the immune system.”
As of tomorrow, September 23, there are 100 days left in 2025. There are 100 essays/prompts in the book. I’m looking forward to something positive and concrete to counter all the things that have depleted me this year.
Planting seeds:
I’m learning some new things, just because. A former colleague is a maker of beautiful clothing, and she teaches sewing classes I’ve long wanted to take. My mom introduced me to sewing when I was a child, but my skills are limited and my craftsmanship is mediocre. I never learned the fundamentals. I don’t need to, but I want to—and so I’ve signed up for a three-course sequence that began last week and goes through December. I don’t think I’ve ever made this kind of commitment to something that feels a little frivolous.
Some other new learnings: In the realm of knitting, I learned how to kfb last week (the process wasn’t pretty, but I did it, thanks YouTube); I’m getting better at baking a good pizza crust; and I’ve been re-learning how to use freezing to preserve some of the vegetables we managed to grow this year.
How about you?
I think many of us are grappling with shaky foundations and/or depleted soil. I’d love to know if anything in today’s essay resonates with your own experiences. How are you shoring up your foundation or tending to your soil, and what’s blooming for you as we turn toward autumn?
I always love to hear from you, and always appreciate your hearts and shares. Thank you for giving your time to my work. And if you don’t subscribe but would like to know when a new essay is up, just click below:
From the moment I say your sub-heading I knew I was going to love this post. I've been reading, and done so much nodding as I did so.
We seem able to be so hard on ourselves, to place such weighty burdens upon our weary bodies and minds - even when we know better, that weariness makes it difficult for us to remember that we need - and are worthy of - kindness as much as those others to whom we freely give it.
That pyramid is even more important that Maslow's, with its important reminder of those things which impact us even taking the first step.
Beautiful writing as ever Rita. You are so skilled at pulling together the myriad ideas and strands and crafting them into a whole which is greater than the sum of its parts. Thank you :)
It always feels like you’re in my head Rita. But you can express these feeling so much more beautifully than I. I think, because I am still working full time and I have an 18 year old at home straddling childhood and adulthood, I fool myself into thinking that I’m just too busy to do all of the things I want to-for me. But if I’m honest, my foundation is a disaster. I feel a paralysis when I actually find myself with free time. And guilt. I am coaching the school team for the Battle of the Books so like it or not I will be reading -16 youth novels and that should help with some retraining. The phone has been an Achilles heel for me. Most of the time the socials leave me depressed, yet I can’t seem to step away. I love when you pop into my in box. Thanks Rita.