Valentine's Day: Tending the Plants

Today a friend who is soon moving away from the city brought over a plant -- a 'lady palm' -- that Stephen and I are taking in for him.
I sometimes wonder how I would feel about leaving the city, and -- as much as I often long to do so -- one of the hardest things about it, I think, would be leaving the garden, and all the trees and plants there that I have grown attached to.
Of course it would be much easier if I knew that someone else was going to care for them, which is why I was happy to take in this plant, because it had obviously been well tended; I tried to reassure my friend that it would be content here in front of the window, and my fingers are crossed for the best.
Back out on the street, I helped one of my neighbors cut down a branch that had been damaged by a truck in the recent snowstorm.
Although it was a large branch, I think the tree will be fine; it probably helps that this happened in February, which is the ideal time to prune trees, before they've started growing and when it's less likely that a wound will be infested with bugs or a disease.
On the way home, I passed the flower stand, which was doing a brisk Valentine's day business.
On Broadway, the wind was blowing hard but the sun was bright, and it felt like early March. I thought about how any given day in a month can give glimpses of both the past and the future, which is a good example of the porous and fleeting nature of the present. (Much the same thing, of course, can be said about artwork, which is usually never as 'radical' as we like to think and can almost always be viewed on a continuum.)
I had much the same feeling watching the sunset; the low western light recalled the shortest days of December and January, while the illuminated clouds above the bridge already foretold the magnificent days of the summer ahead.

Comments

[6h057]

I've come to find my palm to be the hardiest thing I've ever had to take care of. I often water it with leftover water that I've cooled after boiling vegetables. Sometimes I feel like a baby it when it produces new, almost neon green shoots. When a few branches grow brown from under-watering, or the branch has grown out of the trunk (I hope that's what it is) I feel guilty as if I've been neglecting. But as I go back and forth with my care of the plant it ceases to amaze me with how tightly it grasps to life.

[Matthew Gallaway]

Excellent--Ive heard theyre very hardy, so Im optimistic!