Our theme for the month of February is “plants.”
As much as I love them, I am terrible at keeping plants alive. It should theoretically be easy: all they need is sunlight, water, and connection to good soil. The simplicity of it all makes it that much more disheartening when the leaves inevitably turn brown at the ends, signaling a deeper problem that is often too late to fix.
Most plants in my apartment don’t last long, at least partially due to my lack of direct sunlight, but it’s mostly the fault of my forgetfulness/tendency to be out of town. When I started my job and had a sunny window at my desk, I was determined to have a successful living plant. I would be there consistently to water it, and I would stare at it every day—a recipe for keeping it alive. And I chose a succulent—(allegedly) the easiest to care for.
My office began working from home a few days after the world shut down, and we have not been back full-time since. Aside from the occasional office day for a staff meeting or team-building activity, we have all been working from home.
As the dedicated plant owner that I am, I inadvertently left my succulents at the office for that entire time. For months, I completely forgot I even had plants. Occasionally over that first year, someone would stop by the building and water everyone’s plants, but just like everything else during that time, it was unpredictable, and I fully expected my succulent to be a goner.
You can imagine my surprise when I returned to the office after a year and a half of absence and found my flowering succulent to be blooming. Its branches were spreading in every direction, pink flowers exploding off their edges. For months, it sat in an office window with minimal attention, and it thrived.
As my company has shifted to a fully remote setup, we were asked to bring our office plants home while we begin the transition. Now that my resilient succulent is in my home, away from its consistent light source and subjected to my full-time care, I fear it may die (probably within the week).
A lot of my friends (also in their 20s) are treating plants like quasi-children—naming them, carefully tracking their growth progress, downloading apps to finesse watering schedules. Meanwhile, I fluctuate between forgetting they exist and overwatering. But there’s something sacred about the practice of at least trying to tend to life, however small. Sunlight, water, connection to soil: if I can get these things right, hopefully life will follow.
And in a way, that about sums up what I need to experience the best of life: some sunlight, a lot of food and water, and meaningful connection to community. It seems almost too straightforward, but maybe there’s some simplicity to staying alive and thriving amongst all the complications we get lost in every day. Here’s hoping that returning to the basics of plant-mothering and life-living leads to flourishing—for me and my succulent.
Olivia graduated from Calvin in May 2018 with a double major in business and writing. She now works as an editor in Nashville, Tennessee and is eating her way through the restaurants of her new town. She enjoys weekend trips with friends, petting other people’s dogs, and drinking coffee like a Gilmore Girl.
