By Leslie Senevey
I recently read about the discovery that plants emit ultrasonic sounds, essentially “screaming,” when under stress, like not getting enough water or sun, and now I’m in a shame spiral about the dead plants on my back porch. It turns out, I am an accidental, albeit habitual, murderer.
I’ve never had a green thumb, although every once in a while I’ll earn a chartreuse pinkie. I managed to keep a tomato plant alive last summer. It yielded exactly one cherry tomato. And yes, I savored that single bite of homegrown goodness.
Another of my “almost victories” in gardening was keeping a Meyer lemon tree alive for more than two years. It only produced lemons once, and I left them on the tree so long that, when I used them to make scones, they were bitter and over-the-top sour. If Ina Garten had asked, “Who wouldn’t love that?” The answer would have been “everyone.” Because there wasn’t a living soul that could have enjoyed any of those pucker-inducing, scrunch-up-your-face baking fails.
One more “sorta” success was two summers ago, when I nursed a baby cantaloupe along to the point of needing to buy specialty mesh netting to support the melon as it swelled on the vine. But the not-quite-cantaloupe fell off anyway.
As you can see, I’ll never be a gardening guru; however, I’ve managed to keep a few plants alive. And isn’t that life? We try things, sometimes we fail, sometimes we try again, and sometimes we move on. Either way, growth happens.
Which brings me to New Year’s resolutions, always a hot topic this time of year. Honestly, though? I’m not a fan of them.
Fresh starts, letting go of bad habits, setting goals — sure, but why wait until the start of a new year to try improving your life? Also, why put undue pressure on obligatory aspirations that become failures if you don’t accomplish them? Growth isn’t a win-or-lose, pass-or-fail proposition. It’s a process.
New year’s resolutions remind me of Lucy swiping the ball away from Charlie Brown right as he goes to kick it. Why set yourself up to be disappointed when you can be in charge of the ball and kick it any time you like?
Instead of thinking of new initiatives as resolutions, think of them as the seeds you plant to grow the life you envision for yourself. Some will take root, and some will lie dormant, but all contain growth potential. All things have their season, so why try to force things to bloom at the beginning of the calendar?
Speaking of blooms, that brings us to the biggest flower delivery day of the year, Valentine’s Day, also symbolized by chocolate, greeting cards, and a diapered little cherub packing a weapon. I love love and believe it’s worth celebrating, but I feel similarly about Valentine’s Day as I do about New Year’s resolutions: Why make such a fuss?
Love starts like a seed, too. A tiny spark that blossoms into something bigger and bloomier. But like the previously discussed resolutions, you can’t force it if you want it to last. Love has to sprout and grow organically. You need to tend to and celebrate it more than once a year. Which is why Valentine’s Day has never been that big of a deal to me.
Sure, I got very hopeful and excited every Feb. 14 at McLean Middle School when preteen secret admirers delivered flowers to the classrooms of their crushes.
We’d all play it cool when the student delivery people would show up at the door during class. Feigning nonchalance was our only defense against disappointment, but we fooled no one; our innocent 12-year-old hearts thump-thumping with the desperate hope that it would be our name called to claim a carnation.
When it was, it felt like a garden rose bursting into bloom in your chest. When it wasn’t, it felt like those sped-up videos of a plant shriveling up and dying.
None of us let our bruised seventh-grade hearts show, though. We soldiered on, naively dreaming of better days ahead in high school. Hope sprang eternal. And maybe that’s what New Year’s resolutions, Valentine’s Day and so many other moments in life come down to — the ongoing possibility that good things can always blossom, no green thumb required.
Leslie Senevey is a lifelong Fort Worth writer, former dance teacher, sometime decorator and full-time dog and cat mom. Her human kids live in LA and New York. Even though she lacks a green thumb and doesn’t get too excited about Valentine’s Day, she is utterly obsessed with flowers, especially the show-offs like peonies and hydrangeas. (Carnations not so much.) You can find her publication, Distracted by Pretty Things, on Substack.