Plant Murder?

If its yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down.

Scoff if you will, but I’m living in the midst of a drought. My car remains unwashed (I finally have a valid reason for that!) and my showers and tooth washing and clothes washing are all responsibly done. But until today, just now, it stopped there. 

I have houseplants. A lot of houseplants. If they were cats I would be “that” person. There wouldn’t be a reason to call the ASPCA but you’d wonder about me. Of course, the good thing about houseplants is that no one really notices them the way you most assuredly notice cats. No one really cares. 

Plants are my compromise. They are a way for me to care for something without having to worry too much about taking a trip, or moving abruptly. If necessary, I can give them away. No one considers you a bad person for abandoning a succulent. When vacationing, I can usually count on a friend to water them; once in a three week period is usually reasonable for both plants and helpful friends. 

Plants seems like such benign things. Only, just tonight, my orchid was dry, which prompted me to make the rounds to the other eight plants in my house, and I realized that I’m wasting water. Sort of.

All over California, debates are raging and folks are making lifestyle changes (or being judged for not making lifestyle changes). People are pulling up their grass and replacing it with a fake substitute or, less strange, with indigenous plants that require less water. 

Meanwhile, in my house, plants abound and most aren’t indigenous and easy on their water intake. My apartment has little direct sunlight, despite my many windows, and succulents don’t really thrive in here. So, instead of a terrarium full of glossy plump leaves that fancy desert-like environments, I have a hodge podge of gifted and purchased plants that I water weekly or so. 

I can’t even eat any of them. 

Struck by the idea that I’m wasting water, I quickly searched the internet. Google has an answer to every other question, why not this? While I found all kinds of interesting information (which plants clean the air the best and how to use graywater) nothing stated whether I should murder my plants and turn them to compost.

I’ve decided to let them live. Newly inspired to use my shower runoff in a number of ways, my guilt is sated for the moment.

The storm -The Agean Sea

I giggled to myself. I bounced a little in my bunk. The light suffused around me. It was no longer dark but hardly seemed like daylight. Phone buried in my bag at the foot of my bed, I didn’t want to look for my phone, unsure I wanted to know the time. I bumped around some more in the grayness and decided the bathroom wouldn’t wait. Resting my foot on the nightstand built into the wall, I scrambled down as noiselessly as possible so as not to wake Anne, sleeping peacefully (it seemed) in the bunk below.

My narrow perch was the result of my own selfishness. For a time I was certain we'd be adding a third person to our closet-sized room and the bottom bunk was a double bed. Not wanting to sleep with a stranger- in the literal, if not biblical sense - I volunteered for the skyward perch just shy of the low wood paneled ceiling.

Calmer waters

Finally down from my bunk, my biological needs met, I meandered to the bow of the ship to contemplate the late night or early morning...whichever I happened to be experiencing. A light rain fell onto the already saturated blue cushions, despite the canvas awning hoisted above. Not wishing to be wet or for the cold that follows wetness without sun, I walked quietly back to my room and nestled down in anticipation of sunup and breakfast and the general start of the day.

The next time I woke the waves, far from gentle, roused me from sleep. I lay listening to the wind and water outside the tiny window open by my head. The colored curtains flitted forward in brief intervals allowing more air in the room. The morning was warmer than it had been the previous night.

It was fun. A minor roller-coaster ride with expected twists and turns. And then there was a thump. The boat dipped low and I flew ceiling-ward, suspended in air for a long second before making contact with the mattress again. The fun was momentarily lost. Suddenly, Erik Larson's Isaac’s Storm, came to mind. Yesterday I'd been reading about the 1900 Galveston hurricane that killed more than 8000 people. True to Larson's style, there are vivid descriptions of boats creaking loudly as they strained against wind and water, much like the boat was now creaking.

Roller-coaster no longer, this was a motorcycle set free downhill, no railing.

Not usually prone to motion sickness, my stomach lurched a little and I was unsure if it was the raucous motion that stretched seemingly endless before me or if was simply hunger.

Anne continued to sleep below and the boat continued to lurch and skip across waves, dive into the bottom of the swells and then rise again on uncertain legs. I joined Anne in intermittent sleep, waking with a start with any bumps of heightened intensity, and then drifting back to sleep with hopes that the unsettled feeling that left my stomach considering the idea of releasing whatever contents lingered from the previous night’s meal, mulling it over but uncertain of where it seemed to land on the matter.

Hot, drops of rain or wave pelting my face startled me awake a final time. I checked the clock on my kindle, well past breakfast, I wondered if I had slept through it, wondered how they might have managed to serve it given the uncertain footing and listing.

Mary was perched in her bed with the door propped open, eager to discuss the morning’s travails: her vomiting, and “the bullshit of it all”. I reminded her that no one, not even a Turkish sailor can control the weather (she reluctantly agreed) and then I wandered to the front cabin.

We were a hodgepodge there. Some who'd been awake since 6am with hopes of seeing the sunrise (they didn't), others too sick to stay in their cabins and praying for calm or solid ground. When I asked about breakfast there were giggles at my predictability (one day at sail and everyone already knew my appetite) and assurances that in our current predicament no breakfast had presented itself.

I sat outside on the bow, the fresh air calming my stomach, and watched as the indigo waters swelled and sprayed salty mist at us with accurate aim. The lounge cushions secured to the front of the boat with red rope, ignored their moorings and flew backwards, arching for sea. The heavy wooden chairs used at meals, heaved occupants forward ad landed with a clatter on the deck.

Finally a city emerged in the distance, hugging the coast, climbing upward toward sky. We anchored in a little cove, the calm waters a welcome respite from the six hours we'd been tossed in all morning.

The crew, no English spoken among them, looked nonplussed. They scrambled to restore order but did so laughing. Most pressing needs met, they readied the ladder so we could swim while they prepared breakfast.

I jumped in the water, holding my nose, anticipating the shock of cold water hitting my skin, but after a few moments, my body temperature dropping to meet the turquoise water, it was pleasant. Salt saturation buoyed me to the surface and for a little while the morning's chaos was forgotten.

Back on the boat, drying myself in the warmth of a slightly muted but delightfully strong sun, one of the passengers chuckled to himself. When pressed about the humor he pointed at the city in the distance, "that city is an hour and a half by bus from where we started this thing." All I could do is laugh with him.

It Never Rains in Northern California

It rained last night. At least, what northern Californians call rain. It looks more like god sneezed and didn’t quite cover her mouth in time. A little spittle here and there, a fine misting that isn’t even enough to produce puddles; heavy fog more than anything. 

But when you live in a place as rain starved as Alameda county folks will take any trace of precipitation and call it rain.

I’m convinced the lack of rain is the reason San Francisco smells so bad. On any given street or walking down into the BART tunnel, the smell of urine assaults you and strangles the breath from your nostrils. How can it not? No public toilets and no rain to flush the streets that people use instead.

I never thought I’d miss rain. Growing up in the water logged south where at least half the year is eying hurricanes with weariness and enduring a thorough dousing even when the storms don’t makes shore, the idea of dry feet was a novelty.

Then, about five years ago, I flew to a training in Alabama in the middle of the summer. It was oppressively hot and humid. I was peeling off the sweaters I’d purposely layered for this very reason because SFO in the summer is cold and foggy and Alabama is anything but. 

When we landed the clouds were puffy and pregnant with gray. As the day passed, more clouds assembled and sky turned a dark gray color – not the green tint of tornadoes but the darkness of a coming storm. 

The first drops hit, heavy and with purpose, and then the sky opened up and bathed the ground below in cool relief from the heat. It rained for a while. More than a five minute Bay Area sprinkle that transforms the dust on a dirty car to mud –this Alabama rain rinsed cars clean and shiny.

I had the urge to go stand in the rain, to splash in puddles as children are often wont to do. I refrained. Instead I stared out of windows and breathed in the fresh and almost foreign scent of ozone. 

Since then I have a special appreciation for the rain; the thundering rain that pounds a white noise lullaby on rooftops and wipes the city new. Appreciation that makes me chuckle to myself when traffic goes crazy in Northern California over a quick misting and people acknowledge our desperate need for it while exclaiming, “it is really pouring out there.”

Pouring?

I’ve watched a New Orleans street fill with enough water to cover half a tire in 15 minutes, that is pouring. What we have out here is a facsimile – and not even a reasonable one at that. 

People in places pounded by rain and snow will probably want to choke me as they shovel and shuffle through wetness. How dare I complain about months’ worth of clear blue skies strung together like brilliant diamonds? Who wouldn’t want that?

I have to tentatively raise my hand. Even without the current drought that threatens our water supplies and renders our forests fire hazards, I miss a good night’s sleep ushered in by the music made by gray clouds.