Our adopted foliage can serve as a sort of bellwether for our lives.[7] Most of us have gone through periods where we let the phone ring, the dishes pile up, and the houseplants shrivel.[8] Eventually, the pile of brittle leaves collecting beneath the ficus forces us to assess the state of our lives.[9]
Of course, because we have sentimentalized our plants, it’s tempting to read their lives for clues to our own. Once, when a relationship was dying, my African violet exploded with unseasonable purple flowers.[10] Maybe, I thought, there’s hope. There was—for the violet.
My stepmom visits a particular hemlock[11] in a park near her home every New Year’s Day. She walks circles around its trunk, one hand on the bark[12], releasing regrets from the old year and planning for the new one. Her own history and life is now intertwined with the hemlock’s, as year after year, the tree receives her hopes and ushers them forth with fresh oxygen.[13] “Here you go,” it says. “Here’s some more life.”
1. 植物总是孜孜不倦地汲取水分和阳光的种种滋养。
2. 她们跨越州界交换植物的插条,让它们在自己家里生根发芽。cutting: 插条,是从母株上截取的枝条,在适当条件下可培育出新的植株;smuggle: 偷运,走私;propagate: 繁衍。
3. sentimental: 寓有情感的,感情用事的,下文的sentimentalize指“为……而伤感”。
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