Room to Grow

Room to Grow

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

Finding new pots for root-bound plants isn’t easy in November. After trying convenient stores like Target, I took a drive to a garden store and found what I was looking for. Yesterday, my daughter and I repotted a plant with a history. It’s a snake plant. When she was about eight, she rescued it from me. It wasn’t a favorite. Not even sure where it came from. It sat on a shelf fastened midway up the kitchen window frame and was too tall for that place. In a rare moment of cleaning, I lifted the plant from the shelf and walked with it down the hill to our garden where I unceremoniously removed it from the pot and laid it on the earth, figuring it would be good compost for the next year’s crop.

My young daughter did not approve. “Mom!! You’re KILLING that plant,” she said. No amount of recounting the cycle of nature, of things returning to earth to nourish what comes next could convince her. She stood her ground, looking accusingly into my eyes. “No, YOU ARE KILLING THAT PLANT.”

Exasperated, I gave in, sort of. “If you want it, you repot it.” She wouldn’t bother I thought.

Wrong. She brought it to me in the same pot and poor soil, and it went back on the shelf. That year it flowered for the first time, positively dripping nectar. For two years it did that. In my face. I was chastened, and it has moved with me or one of my daughters ever since.

Yesterday, its savior helped me place it in a lager pot. This plant is huge with some leaves four feet tall. It’s become company for me in my office, and I’ve become fond of it. As I was running in and out of the house for potting soil, florist’s tape, and scissors, I called out to my daughter…

“Talk to it, honey. Lay your hands on it. Hold it steady. It trusts you.” She did and carried it back inside.

Today, after buying three new pots, more soil, and a little trellis for a plant that would just as soon climb as spread out all over the buffet, I prepared the counter in the kitchen and put on a little Bach. Couldn’t hurt, I thought. The three chosen plants were ready to break their old containers with roots so thick and entwined that they easily slid out of the pots. I spoke softly, patted, watered, and placed them in clean saucers on the buffet. Root room at last.

PHOTO:Mary van Balen

PHOTO:Mary van Balen

I cleaned the kitchen and then, for a while, just sat and looked at them. Lovely. Dark soil. Clean clay pots. Room to grow. I thought I should probably do something. Like read for the course I’m taking or visit a great niece who’s spending a few days with her grandparents. Or straighten up the dining room table. But I didn’t want to move. Bach was sounding good. I chose root room over busy, breathing deep and letting thoughts and “shoulds” untangle, like I imagined the roots were beginning to do in their new pots. So, there we sat, the plants and I, listening to Cantata #208 and relishing a little space.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inching Into This Century: Amazing Bluetooth

Inching Into This Century: Amazing Bluetooth

outside with speakerI’m not completely Bluetooth challenged. I have a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse for my computer and iPad. But, last week, after a year without anything to play music in my house (unless you count the TV, which I hate to use because the entire time the CD is on, so is the TV’s blue screen), I decided to shop and not return without a speaker of some sort to use with my ipod/ipad. I’ve procrastinated too long to buy an iHome docking radio and speaker. Why didn’t I buy that one I saw at Target six months ago. Now, my 4th generation iPod is “old,” its 30 pin connector replaced by “lightening connect.”

I drove to the closest Apple store. No matter what you think of Apple products, their stores are full of knowledgeable people who get paid to help you. The man who helped me sort through bluetooth speakers was a musician and did some music producing on the side. How lucky could I get. He didn’t mind endless questions, playing and replaying classical music through speakers until I narrowed it down to two. Other customers were turning to look at us as my Apple guy turned the volume up so I could hear differences between how the two handled volume and put out bass as compared to midrange signals.

“They’re looking at us,” I ventured. “Maybe it’s too loud.”

“No problem. You’re just as important as any other customer here. You need to hear the sound before you can know what you like.”

I deferred.

And walked out with a cool cylindrical speaker that I can take anywhere. It is water resistant so if it gets caught out in the rain, no problem. You can even use it in the shower if you want, as long as it not directly in the water stream. OK. I don’t need it in the shower.

The next hurdle was loading my iPod with music, something I had been avoiding. Emboldened by my purchase, I did just that. So, today, I decided to do some writing outside. I put my iPod near a window and set the speaker along with my computer and a cup of tea on the table in the backyard. Amazing. Bach and I outside, watching big dark clouds blow by. I savored the cool air and prayed that the yard service across the street would stop at trimming with a weed whacker and leave the grass cutting to a sunnier day. Nothing drives me inside faster than people cutting lawns. My lungs hurt just thinking about it.

No grass cutters. No rain. Just beautiful music and thoughts and a computer to receive them.

I love quiet and don’t mind spending entire days in silence getting in touch with Grace in my life. I also love music. It has its own way of helping us be in touch with the Sacred in our midst. Now I have music to go!