Plant Murder, Part Two. AKA: Who Cares About Plants When People Are Dying

It’s been a while since the Kangaroo committed his heinous acts against my plants and I meant to finish this story sooner, but it turns out life got in my way. Not in any big way, just in those everyday things that take your focus and distract you from finishing projects. It isn’t just this blog post that has gone unfinished. It’s the two baby blankets for my sisters new baby that are both sitting next to my bedside, waiting for my crochet hook. It’s the half built ball pit in my basement, the unfinished paint job in the playroom, and the partially completed May budget (looks like I get a pass on that one, since its now basically June and I can instead just move on to budgeting for June instead). It’s not just the projects and the writing that aren’t being completed; it’s my thought processes, my intentions, and my daily interactions with other people. For instance, my cousin Becca and I share May as our birthday month. For many many years she has sent me a pig themed birthday card, because she knows pigs are my favorite animals. It comes without fail, no matter what. This year Becca left her home, her job, and her fiancé and spent a month working in a NYC ICU helping with COVID-19 patients, and STILL managed to send me a birthday card. Have I texted, called, or emailed her to thank her for it? Nope. It’s not because I don’t appreciate it or because I don’t want to, its because each of the three dozen times that I’ve reminded myself to call her something has gotten in the way and I’ve forgotten. Some small, trivial, inconsequential thing was enough to completely derail my brain and as a result she’s probably spent the last three weeks wondering if I got her card.

And then things got even heavier as we read daily in the news about black men and women being murdered. I have a black son and the terror I’m feeling every minute of every day is overwhelming and all consuming. And yet, even as I’m feeling that terror it is nothing compared to how black people feel. I am shielded by my whiteness and the Kangaroo can hide behind that shield for a little while longer.

But that’s another post for another time.

I say all of this as part of my explanation for why I still haven’t completed part two of my post. Part two was supposed to be uplifting, involving plant metaphors about how plants, especially succulents, can be propagated and restarted. You can take all these broken pieces, provide them with the conditions necessary to grow new roots, and watch them become bigger and stronger than they were before they were broken. The beautiful plants I bought myself as a special treat were broken into 118 pieces. I know, because I counted. Four plants split into 118 pieces can become 118 new plants, able to fill up more planters and garden beds than I have.

Three weeks ago when I wrote part one I was feeling optimistic. The Kangaroo and I were in a great place, I was proud of my state for slowing the curve, my sister was getting ready to have a baby (I was about to officially become an aunt!), the weather was beautiful, the birds were singing, and the worst thing that could happen was my plants were destroyed. Those things are still all true, but they are all overshadowed by the nonstop violence, murder, racism, oppression, hatred, and fear that exists everywhere we look. It’s hard for me to feel like my plants are important, like my feelings about my garden matter when people are dying. Because people are dying. DYING. Every day, everywhere.

So here’s the rest of part two: I picked up all the pieces, placed them in a large planter, and hope they survive and become stronger for it.

But the rest of that story doesn’t matter, because there are so many other things that we need to talk about. We need to talk about how police treat people of color, especially black people. We need to talk about how the system is rigged, about how people in positions of power take advantage and suppress the black vote. We need to talk about how people are being murdered in their beds while they sleep, how going for a run isn’t safe anymore, and how children can’t play outside without being viewed as suspicious. We need to talk about our internalized racism and how our own biases, no matter whether they are intentional or not, affect how we view those around us who don’t look the same as us. We need to talk about how George Floyd wasn’t killed because he was black; he was killed because those police officers are racists. Aumaud Arbery wasn’t murdered because he was black; he was murdered because Gregory and Travis McMichael are racists. Being black isn’t the problem, being racist is. And we all need to be outraged by that.

Part two of my plant story doesn’t matter. Who gives a flying fart. Let’s talk about what actually matters. Black Lives Matter. End of story.