I wrote this publication in 2019, when I felt spiny and uncertain, not very different from what I feel these days. We have some more orchids now, although I am still very sure of how to take care of them.
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I wake up this morning on the thorny side, or at least, I am thorny once I look at my phone. There are a number of misunderstood texts, fragile dismantled things that have good intentions but poor phrases, or lack the perfect emoji.
My phone is sitting right next to an orchid. It is a new type of orchid for me: a Miltonia, with narrow leaves that point up and a sweet and paransant flower. But now the flowers of the orchid have withered and some of its leaves are yellowish. You can be receiving too much light. You can be receiving too much water or not enough.
I thought I was so good with my orchids. We had received several plants as gifts; A few months ago, I decided that I needed to start the plants better if they ever wanted them to bloom again. I bought pots with holes to let their roots breathe. I investigated the mixture for correct pots, I discarded roots that had been soaked. Now there is a special spray bottle that I take through the house to give them a tropical nebulization.
Those that I have reopened have been cultivating new leaves. But this morning, the straw color tips of the Miltonia leaves reminded me that I must continue to take care of things, keep learning to take care of new ways.
Sometimes, taking care of things makes me run out. That was the problem with all those texts. And then my middle son wakes up spiny because we go to church. We are not even going to church unless we visit a grandmother or, some years, on Christmas eve. We have been talking about Martin Luther King Jr.’s day and we really don’t have a tradition to celebrate it, I say. Maybe going to church will be a way to do it.
He cries.
In the church we sit in the back, the place for the uncertain and recruited. We sing “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, a song that generally gives me a very high and painful feeling. This time, it is sung by a sincere choir in a cadence different from what I remember. I spent most of the song encouraged that my children are trying to sing and distressed that this is the version they listen to first. This does not help with the pimp.
I should pay better attention. That is why we are here, after all, that is why I made myself coming, to pay attention. Someone reads A poem by Mary Oliver. I love Mary Oliver. Even so, I can only concentrate on what my youngest son is doing, who is measuring our hands together. “Your fingers are pointed,” he says. “Why are your fingers so pointed?”
The minister talks about A visit That king had made Berlin in 1964, where he talked about the wall that had been built three years before: “Whether it is this or west, men and women seek meaning, hope of satisfaction, they yearn for faith in something else Beyond themselves, and cries desperately for love and community to support them on this pilgrim’s trip. “
The minister says that, in general, it is a mandate of fools to guess what people in the past would say about the present, but I could imagine what King would say on another wall today.
I could see that my older children had the concentrated expressions of trying to understand something that is out of reach. I imagine the questions they will have: Why was there a wall in Berlin? Right in the middle of the city? What would you do if your friends were on the other side? Is there such a wall yet?
My youngest son is removing the rings of my fingers and putting them in their own small thumbs. There is a part of me who thinks that I should worry about losing them, and then the other part of me sees what he sees, how brilliant they are, how they look so heavy and great and also strangely happy in their hands with December.
I used to do the same with my dad on the occasional Sundays that I went to church with the rest of the family. I remember turning the ring around your finger, tracking the ridges on your nails. There was an ideal point at the base of his thumb where the skin was especially soft. The last time I went to church with him, when he was 24 years old and he was 77 years old, he held his hand and touched the same place with my own thumb.
This morning, when the minister ends the sermon, my son replaces the rings on my finger, wraps my arms around his face so that he could not see them, then surrounds them around his chest. “When is this going to be done?” He says in my ear.
My children are surprised when the next song begins and I whispered that we are going to walk in silence outside the church. They ask if something is wrong. “There is nothing wrong,” I say. “You did a wonderful job when listening.”
Outside, the sky is gray and the magnolia tree is dark and happy with the recent rain. No one asks the questions that I think will do it. They ask if eating too much fat can suffocate it, as a friend has informed them; Once reassured, they ask if we can go to McDonald’s.
Later, when I am considering whether Miltonia water, what the minister said he returns to me: the fight does not end. We cannot stop after just a victory, a defeat. We need to continue risking who we believe we are to become who the world needs to be.
I told myself that I will never get another orchid. Plants are too work. “Even so, life has a certain possibility,” writes Mary Oliver. I think of my dad and his greenhouse. It was full of spider plants because I couldn’t stand not spreading the seedlings they produced. I think of the unexpected joy of eliminating each orchid from your boat too small, the roots surround my fingers as rings.
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Image through Flickr from Biodiversity Heritage Library
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