parallels.

As if it had been placed specially there for me, the first thing I’d laid eyes on in the plant shop was a small rubber tree, in perfect condition, its leaves neat and straight and healthy. On the hunt for a ficus for some time, I swept it up and took it home. I researched best care practices and when to water. As the blogs instructed, I placed it in light, but out of direct sunlight, near my bookshelf. The rest of my plants were over by the window, but I figured having this one on the other side of the room would balance the greenery of the space. Pleased, I left it alone to thrive.

Or so I thought.

After a few weeks, it lost a couple of leaves. Dismayed, I watered it. Two more leaves fell off. Okay. Overwatering? I stopped watering it. She wilted dramatically, and more leaves fell off. I was down to just five leaves, more than half of them gone. My friend, far more plant savvy than I will ever be, suggested repotting it, so within twenty-four hours the plant had been transferred to a roomy, colorful pot with fresh, healthy soil and fertilizer. A couple more weeks passed, but the once splayed leaves were now totally limp. I was baffled. What was I doing wrong? To make matters worse, I’d fallen sick, and, though I didn’t know it at the time, would be down for the count for nearly six weeks.

            I ignored the rubber tree and my symptoms, considering neither serious. The rubber tree didn’t seem to be responding to the new pot, the water, the fertilizer, or its new plant stand. As the fig sagged, my symptoms worsened and finally I took myself to the doctor.

            Daily, I’d check the fig for some sign that my efforts were working. But every day she was the same, listless, wilted, and apparently uninterested in my pleas for her to get better. At the same time, I was pleading to the universe that I would get better, too. I went back to the doctor and back to my friend for help.

            “Nothing’s working,” I whined, not sure at that point if I was talking about the plant or my own health or both. “It’s just wilted.”

            My friend counseled me to try another approach. Water it slowly, just a little bit, every day. Ficuses are greedy and thirsty, she said, but then at the same time, you can’t overwhelm the root system or it will collapse. (Fitting, I thought miserably.) At that point, ever one for dramatics, I had little faith the plant or I would revive, but I resolved to at least try.

            A week went by. Each morning, I poured no more than a couple of ounces into the bottom and top of the pot. And each morning, I took my medicine.

            Another week went by. I changed my tune, speaking gently to the plant rather than demanding to know why it had wilted. I asked it if it would please consider coming back to life, telling it how much I liked having it in my space and how much I wanted it to grow.

            Both the fig and I got worse first. I spent several days in bed, sweating through a fever, cough, aching muscles, and painful headaches. The fig became almost pathetically droopy and I contemplated simply tossing it out. But at last, the medicine took hold, and after weeks of sickness, I began to emerge, very slowly, from the fog. Each day got a little clearer, a little better, and a little more of my strength returned. I took my medicine, and I watered the rubber tree. I bought two new plants and added them to the corner where the rubber tree was, now thinking the lone plant was too sparse.

            And then one morning, on the third week, I woke and saw that one leaf had risen, ever so, from where it sagged the day before. At first, I believed I’d imagined it. But then the next morning, the leaf was higher. The third morning, it was higher still, the other leaves following suit, slowly but surely, creeping their way back into an upright position. Not dead! Joy welled up in me. I was giddy. Chuffed.  

            Perhaps it’s the philosopher in me, but the coincidence was too uncanny. There I was, sick for weeks, wilted and waning, like my poor plant. And there we were, both of us coming slowly back to life through patience, nourishment, and a little positivity.

            I found it fitting for life as it is right now. I get ahead of myself, frustrated when I’m not immediately thriving where I’m placed. But if it the plant just sits there, or for that matter, if I just sit here, and expect that the sunny California weather or just my proximity to Los Angeles will make my proverbial leaves rise and expand, I’m kidding myself. Sick or not, I owe it to myself to treat my work and my life the same way I do my little rubber tree, with gentle but frequent attention, realizing that incremental progress is still progress.  

            We’re both much better now. Not one hundred per cent just yet, but we’re much closer today than we were a month ago. Perhaps the tree and I are connected. Perhaps she was waiting on me to heal so we could heal together, a little every day, up, up, up from the roots. Perhaps she just needed company—a couple of plant friends over in that corner to reach toward and be nearby. If that’s the case…I get it, little fig, I do.

            Perhaps I’m waxing far too poetic over the coincidental parallels of a houseplant to my own life.

            Perhaps. But then again, perhaps, it’s exactly what we both needed.