May 16th, 2023
A few days ago I received a plastic bag from “Big Tree”, aka the Arbor Day Foundation, with 10 bare root trees in it. Mostly they are foot-long twigs with a little flair of root at one end. Dead-looking sticks. This is the least smart way to buy a tree and wish for it to be alive a month after you plant it.
This morning I drove to the hardware store to buy topsoil and plastic pots to plant them in. Absurdly I bought three 40lb bags of topsoil (120lbs of dirt). My goal is to root each twig in the pot for two years and then plant them in the ground later, somewhere else. Assuming they are alive. I have no obvious reason why I decided this was a clever idea. There is something ungovernable inside of me that yearns to nurture and grow trees. As schoolchildren we always got a stick with a flair of root in a wet grocery bag on Earth Day — I have been conditioned.
I filled each bucket around half full with some of the 120lbs of topsoil, and then mixed in two big trowel scoops of shiny, wet compost. The compost I used, which has been decomposing for the better part of a year, smelled nearly identical to human sh*t. It was made from kitchen scraps and leaves. Absolutely atrocious to be (naked) elbow deep with my trowel into the compost bin. I worked through it, via sheer force of will and determination. My head was spinning.
I potted each sad stick with love and admiration and skepticism. Then I watered them, sprayed off my hands and arms and legs and feet with the hose, and went inside.
Five hours later I am at my desk, scheduling Zooms and participating in scheduled Zooms. There is dark grime under each of my fingernails, and the permeating sh*t-smell of compost on my person. No one will sit near me. I have become persona non grata at this co-working space. Twig-potting has ruined my professional life.
