Max's plants are thriving. I may not have been able to keep him alive, but I'm doing a damn good job of keeping the plants that I'm growing in his memory alive. It's no consolation. I don't need to even say that. But looking at the plants, and tending to them, really does make me feel better. It's the wonder I feel at all the living things. I look at living things as if they are a rare novelty these days since my usual thoughts are so often death-side.
Yesterday was not a good day for me. I couldn't manage much, but I did what I could. And what I could do, I decided, was some gardening. It was crazily foggy in Melbourne yesterday morning. This winter has been so strange with fog and frost like I've never seen before in this city. I tell you this just to illustrate the fact that it wasn't a very friendly morning for gardening. Does that give me extra points for getting outside in it anyway? I think yes!
Those of you who know me in real life know how much I love tea. Tea, tea, tea. Can't get enough of it or its
paraphernalia. For those who don't know me in real life, here's a tip: I really, really love tea! My favourite brew is an English Breakfast, or a Twining's Traditional Afternoon, but I've recently begun a caffeine deprivation program. Not because I'm a sadist (though maybe I am) but because we are trying for another baby and I want to reduce every possible, conceivable (pardon the pun) risk associated with poor pregnancy outcomes that I can. This includes caffeinated beverages, of which I am now only imbibing one per day.
I know I can't really throw the trying-to-have-another-baby thing in there and then just change the topic. The truth is I can only bare to mention it in passing at the moment, as if it were not really a big deal, as I've become so superstitious that I'm sure saying the words out loud will rob me of the possibility of it coming true, or something insane like that. But of course it's a big deal, and yes, I have much more to say, and hope, and fear about it. I just can't do it right now while I'm in this terribly sad, hopeless state of mind. So instead I make this post about tea, and why I found myself out in the misty fog planting peppermint and spearmint seedlings.
Apparently anyone can grow mint. I've been told it practically grows itself. It's got such a hold on life that you need to contain it in a pot or else it will take over your entire garden, colonising the earth with its leafy progeny. I spent about two hours at the nursery choosing the right pots. I've made major life decisions in less time than it took to choose a faux-terracotta plant receptacle. I didn't know what size or shape. Self watering or the kind that needs a person to water it? How is there even such a thing as a self watering plant pot? Should the scientists and engineers who came up with that for Yates not be working on much more important, pressing world issues?
