This dead camellia is so pretty. I’m not the green thumb type. I don’t have
any plants in my room other than the dead camellia on my desk and the dried
purple flowers on my dresser. But they weren’t meant to live permanently, so
that’s okay. I suppose I could have a live plant in my room, but I’m on the
north side of the house, so I don’t get much light. Odd, sunlight never
shines in my room. Never.

I don’t have a live plant in my room, but I can look through my partly opened
curtains and the window that is slightly open even though the air conditioner
has been running to see the side yard with its huge oak tree and the plum
tree that’s blooming and the couple of azaleas that didn’t die and on to the
string of trees growing along the fence and through that to the pasture and
the tall pine trees beyond.

I don’t have a green thumb. There was that summer thing I was involved in
one year when I planted a vegetable garden and go back and check on it twice
a week. But here the weeds grow so fast and the critters hungrily chomp on
whatever we plant, and the stuff we buy at the store looks so much better,
and we don’t have to work for it. So I haven’t found myself too eager to get
down in the dirt to coax something to life that is going to take work and
isn’t going to yield much results.

But I planted some stuff today. I took some cuttings and buried them in the
ground. I wasn’t really sure what I was doing. I don’t know if they will
survive, but it was a favor to someone. My activity was not aimed at some
future goal. It was merely the completion of a present request. I don’t
know if I did it correctly, but I did what I could. And I enjoyed it.

Someone once said that gardening is good for the soul. Or if they hadn’t,
they should have. I discovered that today. There is something basic,
something elemental about a hand holding steel turning dirt, all for the
purpose of life. When someone dies, we put them in the ground. These roots
I put in the ground to make them live. The dirt that accepts death gives
life.

I don’t know if they’ll live or not. Chances are that some will make it. I
stuck every root, every branch, everything there into the ground, leaving a
potential end exposed. I watered them thoroughly. It’s no longer up to me.

It’s an investment that will take time to show results.