The Plant Had It Coming

June twenty-third. I want to be on record: I was minding my own business.

I had the notebook out. I had the good corner table, the one with the window at an angle so you get the afternoon light without it hitting you directly in the face. I had a full cup of something and absolutely no plan to talk to anyone. And then the woman at the next table sat down, set a small potted something on the table in front of her, and began, quietly but with clear conviction, to have an argument with it.

Not to it. With it. There is a distinction. She was not murmuring encouragement. She was not narrating her day. She was disputing something. I could not hear the full content but I caught phrases. The word neglect came up. At one point she said, flatly, 'you know what you did.' The plant did not respond, but I respected that she gave it a moment.

The face of someone pretending to read their notebook

I wrote nothing in the notebook. I did not need to. Some things you just carry home. I have been thinking about it all week in the way you think about something that has no lesson in it, just a texture, the afternoon light, the espresso machine going in the background, a woman holding a reasonable grievance against something that cannot answer her, and the specific dignity of doing it anyway. I understand the impulse completely. Gerald and I have had quieter versions of this conversation for years.