A curse

I’m not sure what my obsession with plants are.

I love them. I admire them.

But I can’t seem to keep them alive.

I like to believe that I have some sort of magical connection with them and its part of my God-given duty to raise plants and save the Earth. This idea came to me when I was younger.

My mom was a teacher at a high school called Munro College. She adored her job. She was one of those persons that did overtime like her life depended on it. Most nights, she didn’t get home until nine or ten pm, which meant that I didn’t get home until nine or ten pm. We lived at the same place my mom taught. My dad didn’t live with us. I don’t know where he was at the time, but he wasn’t there. I can’t remember how I felt about my dad not being there or having to spend my afternoons and evenings at my mom’s job.

I don’t think I minded it until I got older.

I think that’s where I got my anxiety from.

I’d come off my school bus at around 3pm. Munro College’s bell (yes a real life, giant sized bell) would ring around the time I stepped off my school bus. Hundreds of boys, maybe thousands would suddenly be out their classrooms and either scrambling to get unto their school bus or sitting around their dorms or playing ‘Padda’ a hockey-like game that they invented.

The problem was that I had to walk through all of them to get to my mother’s office.

They would stare.

They would make me feel uncomfortable. They wouldn’t say anything but sometimes I’d imagine what they said, and it was never good.

Other times they would say stuff.

I’d block it out as best as I could, but my armour wasn’t strong. Words would slip through.

Black

Ugly

Those are what I’d hear most times.

Sometimes for fun they’d yell ‘browning’ which is what they’d refer to people with lighter complexions and obviously, I was not that. They’d say it mockingly. They’d laugh with their friends when I lowered my head. They’d sing songs about skin bleaching at me, I guess their very direct, non-direct way of telling me to try it.

It was terrible. I hated it. I hated them. And soon enough, I hated me. I believed them. When words get thrown at you often enough, you start to believe them.

I didn’t have many guy friends then.

I went to an all-girls school that wasn’t far from where my mom taught.

The famous Hampton School. They were both created on the same charter, one for girls and one for boys. They prided themselves on having a sister-brother relationship with each other and girls would swoon over the Munro boys and boys would swoon over the Hampton girls. It was culture. Written in stone. It’s basically what you were supposed to do.

Most of the population from each school boarded. Which simply meant that they lived on campus while the rest of us ‘day-students’ would travel to school each day. There was a huge disparity between day students and boarders. I always sort of felt stuck in the middle, I guess. I did travel to school each day, but I just lived on the campus of another boarding school. I could go to the events that were labelled ‘Boarders only’ and I did. Once. The next day at school the boarders confronted me and told me to never do that again. I wasn’t a boarder, I didn’t have the privilege of going to their events. I never went to one again.

Anyway, the girls at my school thought me oh so lucky to live on the campus of an all-boys school. They’d say I must have tons of boyfriends and tons of sex. I didn’t. They’d come and list out all their Munro friends and asked if I knew them. I never did. They were always disappointed, and I sort of felt bad at first until I stopped caring. Almost stopped caring. They’d say I was a wasted opportunity. I lived at an all-boys school and never took advantage of it.

I felt alone at school.

I didn’t have much friends and I guess I didn’t make the effort to befriend anyone.

I suppose I enjoyed my solitude. Or I supposed it would hurt less. Anyway, I spent a lot of time alone. Most of it, being miserable. Except, when I was with my plants. My strategy involved holding my breath. As soon as I stepped off the school bus, I held my breath, I clenched my fist and focused on my garden as hard as I could. That was my armour. Not the most effective, but it worked. I released my breath when I got to the gardens. The only solace I had. There was a beautiful garden below the principal’s house. I’d walk and talk to them. I told them about my day and for once, mean things weren’t hurled at me. I imagined what they said back and it was always nice stuff. Stuff that made my heart smile. I decided that if they shook their leaves vigorously that meant yes and if they stayed still, that was a no.

I give life to everything around me. As a child I believed that everything had a soul, had feelings, was capable of coherent thoughts and I tried to act accordingly.

My plants were no different and for a long time they were my only friend.

One afternoon, I asked them about their day and they shook so vigorously that I realized something had to be wrong. But of course, the system I created didn’t allow me to ask the plants questions like that. It had to be ‘Yes or no’ questions.

“Are you sad?”

They shook vigorously.

“Why?”

They shook slightly.

“Sorry,” I had paused. “Are you sad because you missed me?”

Nothing.

“Are you sad because you miss someone else?”

Nothing.

“Are you hurt?”

They shook a bit.

“You don’t look hurt-”

Shaking.

“Are you going to be hurt?”

They shook so vigorously, I was startled. What was I to do? How could I protect them? But another part of me knew it was ridiculous to be talking to plants. I was a little older then and felt like I was supposed to be growing out my child like wonder.

I dismissed the conversation because, what else was I supposed to do?

The next day I came home from school and the plants were all gone. They were chopped up and laid beside their roots to rest.

I was shocked.

I was sad.

I was angry.

You’d have thought that after this happened it would have cemented my belief that I could connect with the earth. But instead, it scared me. I never spoke to plants again. I ignored that side of me so aggressively that I think I pushed that ability out of me. Until I bought a plant of my own when I was nineteen and it died. And I bought another, and it died. That’s my cycle. My curse.