volume ninety-two
i went through my journals
April 2022
Dead. Antoinette, my beautiful first in this home. Dead. I never knew her exactly, despite singing to her often, despite leaning on her often, I never got to know her, to find out what she liked best. I never bothered to truly find out what makes her flourish. She came to me in my earliest days in this new city. Another new city. Again. Running. Again. This time, completely alone. No new friends to meet or cling to or morph into the life of.
She thrived as I crumbled through lockdowns and closures and isolations and panic attacks and alcoholic rock bottoms. I still managed to keep her alive. More than alive. She grew and grew and became more voluminous by the day.
Almost two years passed and she continued to show up. Her leaves pine green on top and cinnamon on the underside. The surface of them furry but soft to the touch, and rubbing them gently between my finger and thumb was the only life I was exposed to other than my own. She was the only thing that felt real in a world that had completely vanished overnight.
Her limbs hung like a waterfall, cascading down in various lengths, searching for somewhere to cling. Now and then I would take a long arm and help it find a curtain rung or a picture frame and she would attach herself to it overnight as if she had always held it close to her.
Then something shifted. The world began to make whispers again and started to slowly come out of hiding. When it did, Antoinette withdrew. She shrivelled. She lost her oomph. She dropped her furry little leaves one by one, then two, then many a day, until nothing was left. Even so, I couldn’t throw her away. I maintained hope that she would be okay. That I would be okay.
My life took me to another city again. Running, again. Two days before I left, there they were. Surviving, triumphant, little green specks growing.
November 2022
She’s hanging on despite my lack of effort to help. I should want her to fight, to keep going, to come back. But in my mind, she’s already gone — a waste of time to invest effort in. Jenny. Named after the person from the past that I ran into while carrying her home.
So why haven’t I thrown her away then if I am so sure she is beyond saving? Her brown, crisp, broken tendrils poke up, gasping for air, crying “I have nothing left to give”.
The soil is dirt and dust — dry, thirsty, and neglected. And yet… one solitary green shoot, as tall as a fingernail stands tall and direct. Right in the centre of its fallen comrades, it says “I’m not done. You might be done fighting, but I’m not done”.
The remnants of a discarded incense stick pokes yellow through the different shades of brown and grey. The card with care instructions — ignored — is placed to the edge as a constant could and should.
She is hope, as I brush my fingers gently through her broken bristles and admire her one fighting arm. “You cannot stop me,” she declares. “I’m here until the bitter end”.
I pick up some of the dirt, rolling it between three fingers and sense the dryness she has been barely surviving on.
Surviving.
Not thriving.
Surviving.
It clings to my tips and sprinkles itself on my page as a confetti reminder to pay her attention today.
April 2023
A snake plant can stand anything. That’s why I have two of them. If I give them too much or too little, they will let me know but won't make a fuss about it. They won’t get dramatic and start calling too much attention to themselves. They’ll patiently wait until I am next tending to them and say “Oh by the way, sorry to bother you, I just wanted you to know that…”
I returned from almost six months of sunshine, feeling replenished, desperate to see the state of my other plants. I knew the snake plants would be unchanged aside from perhaps growing larger. I left the plants in the care of my two roommates who have things like lights for the grey, lightless and lifeless days of this part of the world that drag on for months, and special spray bottles with magical concoctions and who promised to take them out of my room — which would be closed off, unused for the winter — and keep them safe.
It was late at night when I got in. The heat had been put on in my room, snacks and gifts were laid out on the desk welcoming me back from my journey, the cold from outside seeped in somewhat — the way it can in an old house, even when everything is closed — and my plants were exactly where I left them. One on each side table, mismatched plants for mismatched-found-in-second-hand-stores-and-by-the-building-bins side tables. One on the corner of the desk, in her decorated pot. One next to my door that has the dual purpose of the doorstop and covering the unidentified stain on the carpet from the last roommate. One hanging by the window in the brown macrame rope that attaches to the ceiling. The overpriced, impulse-bought brown rope that once held Antoinette. My roommate excitedly embraced me and told me that he’d just brought them all in that day, and how he could tell that while he did, they were asking each other “Where have you been?”.
“What’s going on? Why are we back here? Do you know?” they whispered as they were reunited from their various places around the home.
“No, do you?”
They looked better than they did when I left them in November. They looked like winter was not too hard on them at all. They looked like they had lived in a house with a lot of love. We all did.
I spend many hours a week writing, recording and preparing these love letters for you and it brings me so much joy. I want these to always be free so in order to support my work and keep these coming at no cost, you can:
🧡 forward it to just one friend! just one! telling them you love it, and you think they will too! or share it on your social media if you’re feeling super generous!
🧡 leave a comment on this post telling me what you think of this volume!
🧡 join the hi, lauren deborah! chat, another free space for fun and silly conversations! you can now access it through your desktop so you don’t need the substack app to join in on silly conversations discussing things like this:
here are three things I struggled with this week:
💗 My family is so far away.
🫠Trying my best (and mostly not doing great) at letting my disappointment in change (which I was very grateful for a pal to remind me it's okay to feel) leak onto those around me who are just trying to exist without my sob story.
☂️The realisation that, no matter what, I was always forcing myself to fit into winter “fashion”, and it was always going to be warm enough, waterproof, or something I actually felt good in, but never all three. I like knowing if I am ever in this weather again, it will be with that knowledge and power (and the choice not to be).
here are three blessings from this week:
📝 I was reading an old journal that had some old goals in it. One of them was to get to thirty substack subscribers. I cannot believe there are nearly 300 of you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You help me find the inspiration to write and you help me believe in my own words.
🪥 Putting on pants — not track pants, pants with buttons and zips and such — and brushing my teeth are anti-depressants.
🌞 Cracking the window to my bedroom for that sweet, sweet fresh air when the temperature hit 13 degrees Celsius (55 Fahrenheit).
here are three goals for the coming week:
🎯 Feeling disconnected by my own doing and distracted by other things and far too comfortable for my liking, I am going to do 90 in 90.
🎕 I was met with fresh flowers as a part of my roommate’s beautiful welcome and I love having them on my desk. I have decided this will be an ongoing, small but extremely pleasurable gift to myself, an act of self-care, no matter where I am — housesitting, with family, in this house — there will be flowers on my desk.
📚 I have read two books in the week I have been back with thanks to Sunday Digital Sabbaths and yucky weather. At this rate, I will be through them all before I leave and can make quite a nice little trip to the community book exchange on the corner of my street. (I will just hopefully be reading them in the sun soon instead).
here is something I enjoyed this week:
Seeing this on my first day out back in my neighbourhood is what I enjoyed most this week. Let me know if you call.
pics or it didn’t happen:
I love you. I’m so grateful to those who read my substack 🧡 because I really love writing it to you.
LD
xoxo
"They looked like they had lived in a house with a lot of love. We all did." This was all so beautiful...And Timothy Tamara, I can never un-hear it and I am delighted about it!
Aw Lauren this was beautiful ❤️ I love the names, and the personalities. I love that your roommates understand them too.
I have tried and failed a number of times to raise any sort of plantlife. It doesn't seem like a thing within me. Maybe I just lack the patience, I don't know. But I enjoy them.
A character in a game I just finished playing used plants to help her understand the complexities of the world and the people around her, and a way to hide from them. But the main character getting her to talk about them brought her out of her shell. They became friends, bonded over the search for a rare flower he remembered from childhood, and she became his botany teacher. And all the while she came more and more out of her shell.
It was a lovely character arc to watch. And I loved these stories from you. Thank you 🙂