As I step back and examine my train of thoughts, I realize how it circles the same troubles like a continuous loop. Even when I take a walk or have a video call with someone, I generally remain connected to this interior monologue, only half listening and paying attention to what we see or hear. My friends Rico, and James came fooling me over the same lines I say- that it gave me a way to divert these thoughts with growing and arranging plants- and eventually with the idea of making this essay.
This could be upon the occasion of a global pandemic when certain events can trigger a different quality of thinking and feeling that was so bewildering. A certain space that liberated us is gone in events of a drastic change. I just say that we are embarked on somewhere we haven’t delved into, beyond our comfort zone with a minimal association of our bodies. The idea and feeling of being in this situation and reconstructing space through houseplants are suddenly turning senses snap to life and everything we see and hear seems a little more vibrant.
Our unfamiliar acquisition of flora, came to the thoughts of care and attention- and to make sure that they thrive symbiotically with our being. It feels joyful as if we are about to leave on a trip and must say goodbye to our valuable experiences that we may not associate with for a while, we might suddenly view community quarantines in a different light.
Normally I take time for granted for what I’m fighting and working on, but now I look at my life’s fantastic and mundane characteristics. The sense of a looming difference makes us more peculiarly emotional and attentive which lets us evaluate how to interdepend on our conscious environment.
A more serious version of the quarantine situation lies in particular themes of life and death when some of our plants die — and internalizing that plants are living things that played a role in our lives. We have somehow lost a part of ourselves. For a little moment, the shadow of our mortality falls over us as we wrestle with this. We are made aware of the permanence of this loss and feel regret that we did not appreciate them more.
These plants provide a degree of clarity amidst Ms. Rona’s manifestation (coronavirus I mean) when people may feel some anger that life simply goes on, that they are oblivious to the reality of death that has suddenly struck, and keep going. For several days or perhaps weeks after this loss (of livelihood, relatives, and so on) we tend to experience life differently. Our emotions are rawer and more sensitive. Particular stimuli will bring back associations with death.
This intensity of bewilderment will fade, but each time we are reminded of the nature of life, a small portion of that comes back. The plants we grow helped us cope.