I’m talking to flowers, but it’s ok…

From my journal: 26 September 2024, San Salvador, El Salvador:

I’m talking to flowers. It started this week in El Salvador. I looked out my window onto the tiled patio at the plants the house worker moved outside while I was gone. It was early evening and I was reading and suddenly I realized the table-top saucers that hold the plants were empty. I looked up and saw all of the saucers on the floor and around the room were empty and I realized the plants had all been moved outside.

It’s pleasant outside now. Beautiful yellow light on a western-facing patio wall, gentle wind, light rain in the evenings (the rainy season has just ended). I looked and saw the plants. And even though it is pleasant on the patio I was struck by a sense of loneliness for them and I wondered if plants feel rejection.

I laughed out loud at my thought. Then I thought of my Mom. I thought, my Mom wouldn’t laugh at the thought, she would talk to them and reassure the that they are safe and that no one has rejected them. So I said, “Hey little flowers, I’m here. I haven’t rejected you.” And I laughed at myself for doing it!

I don’t know hardly anything about plants. I have a single plant in my house in Nashville. Tess gave it to me, she said it helps the air. And besides, she said, I could use the greenery. When she gave it to me she said what it is but I forget. It’s ugly. She said it is a plant that doesn’t need a lot of attention and can survive long periods without water. She said it is resilient and it’s true. I will come back after being away for months and its still there, green and growing.

Yesterday I went for a run in my neighborhood. At the end of my run I walked and explored the leafy streets. I saw a grounds worker mowing a little bit of curbside lawn with a trimmer and I looked down and saw what appeared to be a field of clovers, though I wasn’t certain because the leaves were oblong. Looking closely I saw one had four leaves! So I bent down to pick it before the worker mowed it. I was excited because I haven’t found a four leaf clover in years! I always look for them and have this little ceremony when I find one. I say a prayer. I have collected them from all over the world.

Many years ago I found a nine leaf clover at my Mom’s house. She told me that clover aberrations sometimes come in clusters and she sent me back out to the field to investigate. Sure enough she was right and I found a whole cluster of clovers with nine leaves! My Mom instructed me: “Let’s try to replant them. You have to dig them up by gathering as much soil around them as you can. Be careful, their roots can be damaged.” I dug up the cluster and we replanted it in a large pot on her patio. But it didn’t survive. When it didn’t survive my Mom said, “It is difficult transplanting wild things.”

As I picked the oblong four leaf clover I noticed the entire patch had four leaves and I realized it was probably some other species. I took a photograph and searched it and sure enough it turns out I was excited about a wild peanut, not a clover at all. I felt a little silly but I also didn’t feel like I needed to waste a good prayer. I had thought I hit the jackpot with a giant cluster and I had already had my little ceremony of prayer. So I prayed a little more and I trust the prayers were accepted.

I vaguely remember having a conversation with Mom once on the veracity of talking to flowers. I never saw her do it–she hid most of her enthusiasms–but she said she had faith that it helps plants when you talk to them.

So if you see me stooped over some plant in your house someday having a conversation, don’t be alarmed. It’s just a conversation. I talk to flowers. Whether or not it helps them, I don’t know. But I know it comforts me and I know it’s really just an extended conversation I am having with my Mother.