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Mint Condition

Dust quietly layers the sideboard as the week-old carnations brown and droop. The apartment still smells faintly of cumin and chili powder and paprika from last night’s chickpea dish, and Toby attacks his new toy before dragging its stuffed carcass into our bedroom, his lair.

I close my eyes, sink into the reverberating sounds from the living room fan, and let my mind doze.

In two days, I start my new job. After a little over two months of applications, rejections, and interviews, I finally snagged a position that I’m actually really happy about. Even still, its imminent kickoff triggers all the typical qualms that most everyone whispers to themselves – all of which boil down to something along the lines of “Don’t cock it up.” But at least this time around, I’m not quite as fretful as I was starting over in LA – mostly because I’m not completely recreating my career. And I now know that mastering nonprofit code-switching is the key to succeeding in Nonprofit World. All that aside, it’ll be nice to get back into the swing of things, and do some good.

***

Lately, I’ve pulled back a bit from the world. Everywhere I turn – and every time I read through my Facebook feed, or peruse some news site – there’s so much ugliness and tragedy and terror that I want to curl into a ball and sleep, or throw a vase against the wall.

It seems I’m lacking a much needed groundswell of inspiration – something wholly necessary to offset the stressful annoyance of trying to bring this whole publishing-a-book goal to fruition. I’ve been hoping that the greasy sheen of oil pastels or the earthy richness of potting soil will jump-start my mind like a drained car battery.

Doodling...

More doodling...

And another doodle...

But there’re no sparks to be felt, no gears shifting around upstairs.

Usually, my recourse would involve complaining and violin-playing, and then I’d get over it. Now – whether it’s a few more years of wisdom, or a few more reality checks under my belt – I’ve found that putting a little good out into the world and having the courage to keep going are more appropriate responses. Because even if these tacks don’t spur some genius idea, or break through that writer’s block, I know that I haven’t fed into the defeatist mentality that lords over so many folks’ minds. My mind is still free.

***

Sirens howl through the afternoon heat, and I reach out and rub the tabletop geranium’s fuzzy leaves, their peppery fragrance steeping under my fingernails.

I look over at the mint plant’s new, fragile shoots bending upward toward the light – growing slowly, silently, and gracefully.

Growing, slowly but surely...

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Root (Re)Bound

Lately, life has been a little difficult.

But that’s to be expected. Work is tiring. Keeping the house in order is always an ongoing process, especially if you happen to be incredibly obsessive about how everything looks — not that I’d know. Toby keeps gaining chins at a rapid rate, despite our best efforts.

Oh, Jabba the Pup!

And self-imposed deadlines are creeping up (oh, haaay book-that-should-be-finished-but-isn’t).

Oh, [First World] life.

But every now and then, we get a little kick in the gut that reminds us to check in with ourselves. Make sure everything’s in order. That we’re doing just fine and not slowly retreating from the world and curling into a nice, tight ball of nerves.

Because when that happens, you need a little something called a Mental Health Day.

Now, I was no stranger to taking these at my last job. But given that my depleted work ethic has since rebounded, it’s hard for me to take some me time to decompress. Still, we all have days that start off like this:

Some days, it's hard to get out of bed.

(Yes, that mess Toby’s comforting, who’s sprawled across the bed, is yours truly).

So, for whatever reason, I often fill my mental health days with plant-related tasks.

Whether it’s staving-off an aphid infestation or re-potting plants, there’s something incredibly cathartic about giving a little boost to the quietly alive things making our apartment look that much better. Even if the process is messy. (Like one of my favorite bloggers describes.)

Oh, life can be messy.

And for very obvious reasons, the whole process reminds me of growing up — my roots, and how and where I’ve come into my own.

As a very late bloomer, I didn’t really find my niche, nor my voice, until a lot later in life. And I didn’t really give myself many chances to thrive. Which is probably why I’d always gravitate toward the bedraggled looking plants in the nurseries. Sort of like how, back in college, I’d always “rescue” the beta fish that looked sickly or generally gross. I’d map my own history onto these struggling pieces of existence and hoped to see something in me reignite or take shape. But alas, usually these attempts ended with a toilet flush or a wilted mess.

Now, though, I’m pretty damn sure where I’m going and how to keep myself rooted — even when we keep on the move. And from that has come a new sense of self — of better understanding my own capabilities and my strengths, and how best to use those skills to nurture new life, new opportunities.

And an unexpected byproduct of all of this maturation has been an understanding of how to deal with the future — the unknowns, the certainties, the scary stuff none of us likes to think about. The warts and tears and politics of getting older, and watching our parents start that bizarrely alien, yet natural process of slowing down. And dealing with the outbursts and bruised feelings and hard decisions children have to make when they start assuming the roles of parents and parents start pedaling backward into childhood.

In many ways, we’re all seedlings trying to conquer a massive pot of soil — make it our own, dominate it.

Little by little we grow.

But before we know it, we hit the outer edge.

The outer rim.

And we have to break up our root-bound selves, replenish, and start growing again.