The Company of Green Things

There are plants in every room now.

Some are rare—a bit finicky, a bit theatrical, leaves like lace or stars or little dragons. Others are simpler, trailing happily across bookshelves and curtain rods, content just to be near the light. They are rooted in mugs and moss poles and nursery pots I still haven’t gotten around to repotting. But they are home now. And so am I.

The Monstera Thai Constellation watches over my mornings with celestial grace.
The Dragon Scale and Silver Dragon Alocasias shimmer like folklore.
My Syngoniums—Confetti, Red Arrow, Mojito—flutter open like whispered secrets.
There’s a Strawberry Shake by the window, a Pink Princess twining toward sun. Oh, how I love Philodendrons.
The Birkins—green and white—stand like patient sculptures.

Even the Pothos have their own stories: Marble Queen spills with elegance, Yellow Flame climbs with quiet conviction. Cebu Blue catches the light and makes something sacred of it.

Each one holds a little piece of wonder.
Each one changes, gently, while I am not looking.

And oh—what joy it brings. To wake and see a single new leaf pushing from the center, curled like a question mark, still wrapped in its own dreaming. I speak to it, absurdly tender: hello, little one. I check on it daily, watch it unfurl like it’s telling me something only the two of us can understand.

There is something unmistakably bright about that small, green beginning.
It lifts me, always.
No one claps. But I do. In my heart, at least.

When it’s time to repot, I spread out my tools and make a quiet ceremony of it. Hands in dirt, fingers finding roots like old threads needing to be loosened. The scent of soil—earthy, forgiving. It never fails to calm me, to light up some happy place deep in the brain that asks for nothing but texture and touch. It is therapy without language.

I used to fear their fragility. Now I trust their signals.
A drooping leaf isn’t disaster. It’s just a whisper: I need something.
And isn't that, too, something we all wish we could say without shame?

I water them on Sundays, mostly. Sometimes on instinct. I mist, prune, rearrange. I talk to them in passing. You’re doing so well. Look at you.
They do not rush me.
They do not mind if I am quiet.

Some days, I am all root and no bloom.
Some days, I am tired but upright.
Some days, a new leaf feels like a miracle.

And they remind me: growth is not always visible, but it is always happening.

They are the green heart of my home.
And they have brightened the rooms of my inner life in ways I never expected.

—L.B.

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