the geranium
My mom bought me a pale pink geranium last summer, and I kept it in the window of my three season porch, the only pretty thing in the space I used as storage for moving boxes and everything else I didn’t know what to do with. By November it still had flowers, so I took that as a sign to overwinter it in my south-facing kitchen. Not that I knew what overwintering meant or entailed, just that I could keep it forever.
Of course, I overestimated my ability to keep something going on my own, because by the spring one of the offshoots of the plant had rotted through, and I had to pare the whole thing back, leaving very little of the original foliage and growth. I repotted it, mixed in new soil and gave the plant a sunny perch on the cleaned up porch, and waited.
The remaining leaves wilted. The plant looked so sad and beleaguered, I truly thought it was finished. But after a few extra days of sunshine, the leaves began to perk up and reach towards the light. After a week there was a new bright green offshoot, and I knew then it would be okay.
I still don’t have any blooms on my geranium. And I know I could have tossed the old plant, bought a new one full of flowers, already beautiful and perfect. But I needed this–giving something time and attention and tenderness, but also the space to grow and thrive.
I needed to remember what love is.