Thriving

Last weekend, Andrea brought me a hyacinth. And I've been staring at it compulsively ever since.

I love hyacinth. The blossoms are perky and unique, and the perfume is amazing. And, it turns out, it is the perfect plant to raise in my apartment: it dislikes direct sunlight, and I have none to menace it with. Also, it suggests a somewhat laid-back watering schedule, at least before it blooms. "She knows you," Nick gloated.

The thing that terrifies me is that it bloomed almost right away. The thing is thriving. It loves it here, and I know that this cannot last.

When I was younger, my mother, who has a great green thumb, tried to get me excited about plants. She bought a mini cactus garden, and we tried really hard. A couple of weeks later, when I carelessly bumped it, all the cacti fell over, their roots lifting right out of the gravel.

I had killed a whole cactus garden. By underwatering. Seriously.

My mother, undaunted, gave me a patch of garden in the back yard. None of my plants did better than indifferently (and most did worse), except for the morning glories that quickly grew over the top of our eight-foot fence and vaguely resembled Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors. This impression was in no way ameliorated by the sunflowers I planted one year, which grew to monstrous proportions and then promptly died, leaving their sagging heads to menace anyone who made it through the morning-gloried-over gate.

In high school I suffered through a reprise of the cactus garden incident when I brought an ivy plant in for extra credit in biology. Basically, we got points for keeping plants alive in the classroom, and my mother assured me that she had a plan. "This thing has been neglected for years," she said, thrusting the ivy at me. "There's just no way to kill it in two semesters."

I got the extra credit, but I'm quite positive that it was out of pity.

My mother threw away the poor brown plant as soon as I brought it home, and has learned to be wary of me, because in all of these cases, the problem was never neglect. I paid near-constant attention to all of these plants; I just suffered from some kind of mental block that prevented me from interpreting the care instructions correctly. (Except for the morning glories. Those were just weird.)

A few years ago in Philadelphia, I decided that I was ready to try again. I bought an African violet, and I bought plant food specifically for African violets. I read the instructions, and I called my mother and read them to her.

As it turns out, none of these precautions can make up for placing an African violet above a radiator, because although it initially flourished, it was only a matter of time before the whole thing began to discolor. And, because I did not know this then, I could only watch (and tear at my hair and face) as the leaves slowly drooped and died.

Now I own a hyacinth, and I love it, and I want it to be the plant that breaks my curse. And it has blossomed, and delicately scented every inch of my apartment, and this morning I woke up and something was wrong.

Okay; I know that plants grow toward sunlight. But when I glanced over this morning to see the three stalks completely flattened out, can you blame me for thinking that something was wrong? Would you have noticed right away that they were all flattened in the same direction?

And so now I sit here and fret, because even though it says it wants no direct sunlight, might it want more indirect sunlight than it is getting? Could the growing-to-light thing be a red herring? Is it languishing from lack of water while I complacently review photosynthesis? Am I killing it already??

I began doing yoga again tonight (my muscles are now jelly), but then I went right back to staring at the hyacinth. And now I'm sipping leftover New Year's champagne and typing and planning my dinner, but I cannot count the number of times that I have stopped to stare at the hyacinth. I turned it around this morning, but as of right now, it's still flat.

I need it to straighten back up; I really do.