by Zibby Owens
“This is fifty dollars a glass back home,” she said, swirling the scotch appreciatively. She wasn’t pretentious: she was a sensualist.
My flight landed at 1 a.m. on a Friday in August, 2007. Right away, I was enlivened by New York, which I described as “my future home” in a gushing postcard to my parents. “It’s the best city in the whole world!” I scrawled, practically panting, “I know why Sydney was becoming such a bore: I’m supposed to live here!” I saw five-dollar improv shows at UCB Theatre, gawked at MOMA’s permanent collection, got lost in Central Park, and ate pizza as a snack. Greenpoint was quiet and neighborly, full of Polish restaurants and hip bars with wooden floors and kids my age with visible underarm hair. Every night, I came home to a plant-and-cat-filled apartment and started Googling “visa for America.” I prayed to Buddha and God and my angels and the universe to bring me back there, please.
After we returned home, Risha and I moped, depressed. New York was on the other side of the planet and we were . . . not. But I stuck to my guns. I started telling everyone I was moving to New York, and to my surprise, everyone believed me. I won a national idea pitching competition, the prize of which included a return trip anywhere in the world. You can guess where I chose.
I arrived back in Brooklyn in March of 2009 with two enormous suitcases I couldn’t quite carry on my own. I didn’t have a visa, or a job, or a place to stay beyond a ten-day sublet. The first six months were a blur of new friends and two nudist roommates—true story—and getting hopelessly lost despite the city being a grid. But by the end of the year, I’d secured a small but cute room with two new friends in a three-bedroom apartment back in Greenpoint. As the city emptied out for Christmas, I finally got around to emailing Star Black. I couldn’t remember her physical address in Greenpoint—I couldn’t find it in my inbox and had no idea where my current apartment was in relation to hers. “I’m at 684 Leonard Street,” I told her. “Where are you?” She emailed me right back. “Hon, I’m at 682 Leonard Street.”
All those hot August nights spent praying to Buddha and God and my angels and the universe worked so staggeringly precisely, I ended up literally back in the place I fell in love with. At my local bottle shop, I bought the most expensive bottle of whiskey I could afford. Star Black and I drank it on her roof, freezing but thrilled to see each other, swirling it in our glasses as the lights of the city came on.
Georgia Clark is an author, performer, and screenwriter. She wrote the critically acclaimed novels The Bucket List and The Regulars, and others. Georgia is the host and founder of the popular storytelling series Generation Women.
This Little Sprout of Mine
DONNA HEMANS
I hoped naming my plant would help it survive.
“You killed it,” my niece said.
She was looking at the terrarium in the center of my dining table. It was a glass jar made up of brownish moss, a rock, and a miniature female figurine simultaneously standing on her head and reading.
“There’s still some green,” I said hopefully, sprinkling a bit of water on the small tufts that clung to the glass and the rock.
I had been trying to revive it for nearly a year, avoiding the inevitable step of replacing it with a fresh evergreen carpet. Doing so would be admitting my biggest failure: I come from a family of farmers, yet most everything I plant—or any plant in my care—dies. So the terrarium suffered the same fate as the lucky bamboo plant it replaced.
This spring, especially with many of my outdoor activities off limits because of statewide lockdowns, tending a small garden was supposed to have been a mood-boosting activity. Indeed, a recent study published in the journal Landscape and Urban Planning says exactly that. According to the study, gardening—whether growing vegetables or ornamental plants—is as effective at boosting a person’s mood as biking, walking, eating out, and other popular leisure activities. And news article after news article describe the growing interest across the country during the lockdown in growing vegetables, herbs, and fruit.
Yet, gardening has never been a mood-boosting activity for me, but rather one driven by angst and filled with worry that all my efforts will fail.
Gardening has never been a mood-boosting activity for me, but rather one driven by angst and filled with worry that all my efforts will fail.
When I was a child in Jamaica, my father maintained a greenhouse in the backyard with a wide variety of anthuriums and other plants whose names I don’t recall. He circumposed the croton, lychee, and citrus plants that grew in our yard, making cuttings for others who asked or replanting them around the yard. He grew callaloo, peas, peppers, yam, sweet potato, cabbage—all manner of produce that filled plates and supplemented the produce that my mother bought in the market. My father’s father had done the same; farming was his livelihood. The hillside that sloped away from my grandparents’ house was filled with cocoa, coffee, banana, plantain, and more.
Yet, here in the Washington, DC, suburbs where I live, I had failed at maintaining a simple miniature moss garden. One summer, before resorting to the terrarium, I tried container gardening, putting a tomato plant in one pot and thyme in a second. I also planted raspberry and blueberry shrubs in the middle of my townhome’s small yard. That year, I reaped a handful of cherry tomatoes and raspberries before the birds took the rest. Both the raspberry and blueberry shrubs withered in the heat.
Year after year, I have attempted to replace the grass in the backyard with some kind of groundcover that requires little watering and no fertilizer. Even the clover seeds refused to grow.
Disappointed, I sat with a landscape artist to draw up a plan to replace the grass with stone and create an extension of the patio.
“What color flowers do you want?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t care about color,” I said. “I just want plants that need little care.”
He looked at me, successfully hiding his surprise, and carried on, changing the plants he suggested to something hardy.
I didn’t use the landscaper’s design. What I took from our meeting was that I needed plants that can survive on their own, plants that thrive in desertlike conditions. In the backyard, I planted hardy succulents that need little water. Some have done well, reviving each spring and defying the hot Washington summers.
Perhaps I watered it too much. Perhaps it needed less time in the sun. But it is gone now . . .
For the house, I turned to a moss terrarium, which I bought on a weekend trip to Brooklyn from a now-closed shop that created miniature worlds. I pored over the scenes of life drawn from ordinary moments—a couple hiking, a woman on a park bench, a beach scene—searching for one that reflected my life. I knew, somehow, that I could maintain moss. I read the instructions, spritzed the moss every few weeks, and sometimes moved the terrarium from the dining table to the shaft of afternoon sunlight that spread across the living room floor.
Perhaps I watered it too much. Perhaps it needed less time in the sun. But it is gone now, and I am replacing the dying moss with a fresh carpet. I’m borrowing something from the Washington, DC, area and naming it after myself.
If nothing else, I have to keep my namesake alive.
Instead of gardening during lockdown, I painted small furniture and decorative pieces around my house in an attempt to bring color inside. With everything at a standstill, I wanted colors that reflected movement and growth. I painted a red wooden folding chair and a three-foot candleholder lime green, and started other projects involving coral paint and another color described as cake batter. There have been some pleasant surprises, however: a single perennial from last year’s gardening attempt has bloomed again. Small fuchsia colored-flowers brighten the bed. They give me a sliver of hope, reminding me what spring should be: a celebration of rebirth and growth and the circular nature of life.
Donna Hemans is the author of the award-winning novel River Woman and the novel Tea by the Sea.
In Japan, a Mother and Son Find New Balance
JANICE KAPLAN
/>
Among quiet rock gardens and bustling city intersections, I saw my son come into his own.
I thought I had passed the age when I would drop everything because a man called. And then came the moment that proved me wrong. He was traveling in Asia and he had an unexpected free week. Could I possibly join him?
The obvious answer was no. I had just started a new job with a packed schedule and many commitments.
Instead, I gave a very clear “yes.”
He wanted someplace exotic, but taking many connecting flights meant I’d have only a few days, so he proposed Tokyo. He had recently been but didn’t mind visiting again, and the direct flight would be easy.
I booked a ticket at the last minute and could only get a middle seat in the center section. But it didn’t matter. I put on headphones when I got on the plane and closed my eyes, overcome by a wash of joy. A whole week together! However I tried to keep my heart beating calmly in my chest, it soared and floated and spiraled out among the wispy clouds. The thirteen-hour flight passed in a flash.
His flight from Hong Kong was scheduled to arrive about an hour after mine from New York, and he suggested I wait for him at a coffee shop he remembered in Terminal 2 of the Tokyo airport. I landed in Terminal 1, and by the time I found my way, I wearily wondered if this rendezvous would happen.
Then gazing across the terminal, I saw him: tall, striking, and striding quickly toward me. I had almost forgotten just how handsome he was, with a newly earned self-confidence and strength evident in every step.
I stood up, heart beating. “You found me!”
“Hi, Mom,” he said.
My son, my grown-up son.
He gave me a hug and reached for my suitcase. “I’m glad you’re here. I thought we’d take a train to the hotel,” he said.
“You lead. I’m happy to follow.”
You never stop being a parent, but the trick is to know when your child has stopped being a child.
He looked surprised. We always claim we hope our children will grow up to be strong and independent—and at some point, we have to prove we mean it. This seemed the week to let the parent-child balance change. Zach was six-foot-one, smart, and had just graduated from Yale. He was spending the summer traveling and had visited Tokyo before, which I had not. On what basis could I consider myself the natural leader of the team anymore? You never stop being a parent, but the trick is to know when your child has stopped being a child.
Zach got us onto a subway, navigating the Japanese signs, and we emerged into a vibrant neighborhood with tall buildings and throngs of people. After some freshening up, we went out to explore and then headed to a tiny sushi restaurant for dinner. Sitting at the shiny counter, we watched the chefs wielding sharp knives and then plopping their creations in front of us without plates or chopsticks. Everyone else in the restaurant seemed to be locals and we quickly learned to dip our fingers into the pebble-strewn stream running under the counter. Two men at the very end kept watching us, and when we finished and got up to leave, they came over and shook Zach’s hand. One tried out his very limited English.
“Girlfriend,” he said, smiling at Zach and pointing to me.
“Mother! Mother!” I said vehemently.
The man smiled again.
“Pretty girlfriend,” he said.
“Mother!” I repeated.
We left quickly, and when I told Zach how mortified I was, he just laughed. “I’m an adult, Mom,” he said. “I just thought it was funny.”
Over the next few days, we explored Tokyo, delighting in the bustling intersections, the endless shopping, and the many neighborhoods. Even coming from New York City, we were overwhelmed by the neon lights and the feeling of a city on steroids. But we also found a quiet shop with exquisite hand-painted kites. We ate, we talked, and we wandered. Most of all, we connected as equals.
Heading to Kyoto one day, we boarded the wrong train at the busy Tokyo station. We had just settled into our seats when Zach figured out the mistake and whisked us off just as the doors were closing. He got us to the correct train in time and looked thoroughly pleased.
We always claim we hope our children will grow up to be strong and independent—and at some point, we have to prove we mean it.
Kyoto was magical, and we spent the next few days wandering through shrines and temples, taking off our shoes to slip along polished wooden floors. We learned that in Shinto shrines, you can clap your hands or ring a bell to call the gods, while Buddhism is a quieter religion. We strolled on forest trails and alongside a canal, and one afternoon in a beautifully peaceful garden, Zach looked around and clapped his hands.
“In places like this you feel that you really could summon the gods,” he said.
In that quiet setting, we talked about luck and opportunity, about setting the course for your future but still recognizing serendipity. I listened far more than I spoke, marveling at my son’s insights. How had he become so wise? When he was a baby, rolling over for the first time or sitting up, I would think, How can you do that today when you couldn’t do it yesterday? Then he got a little bigger and might use a new phrase and I would wonder, How do you know something that I didn’t teach you? The questions never disappear; they just become more potent over time.
The next day, in another part of Kyoto, we took our buzzing American selves into a Zen rock garden. It sounded rather silly to me, but it didn’t take long to be won over by the absolute peacefulness. Most gardens worship nature, but this spot had no natural beauty—just fifteen stones arranged to inspire contemplation. From wherever you stood, you could see only fourteen of them at a time. Maybe the symbolism was too obvious: However much you want to see everything, you only ever get only a partial perspective on the world. It is true of your children, too. They are your heart and soul, but the real joy is recognizing the fifteenth stone, the part not always on view.
Janice Kaplan is the former editor-in-chief of Parade and the author of many bestselling books, including The Gratitude Diaries: How a Year Looking on the Bright Side Can Transform Your Life. Her latest book is The Genius of Women: From Overlooked to Changing the World. She hosts the podcast The Gratitude Diaries.
Lessons from My Origami Failures
NICOLE C. KEAR
I am not crafty.
At least, not in the “whiz with a glue gun” sense. In the “cunning and wily” sense, yes, sure, I’d qualify. But all the cunning in the world won’t help when you’re faced with a pile of pompoms and no earthly idea how to turn them into a giraffe.
I feel the same way about crafting that I do about yoga and eliminating refined sugar from my diet. Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Sign me up, so long as it’s a theoretical sign-up, not one I have to actually go through with. Because in practice, crafting is hard. And parenting three kids in today’s world is hard enough.
But life, as we know, is nothing if not unpredictable. And so I now find myself stuck at home with my three kids for an indefinite period of time, charged with their education and enlightenment. Suddenly, I have all the time in the world to do the crafts I claimed I was too busy for, in my previous, free-to-roam-the-world life.
Enter origami.
As crafts go, origami is as good as it gets. It’s got a small footprint and is mess-free. All it requires is a single sheet of paper and a brain that can follow simple directions. However, I do not have that brain. I’m certain that an MRI would confirm that. So when I asked my seven-year-old what fun projects she wanted to do while we were housebound, and she replied: “Origami!” I was filled with dread.
Still, if there was ever a time to get a handle on origami, it was now. There was—there is—so much beyond my control, but this, at least, I could exercise power over.
“Let’s do this,” I told her.
I agreed to try a super-easy, beginner origami project—a star. The how-to video we found promised it would take under two minutes.
I didn’t have origami paper but, I figured, how important could that be?
Spoiler alert: very.
It took us a full five minutes to realize that an 8.5 x 11 sheet of printer paper would not yield the same results as a square piece because of, you know, geometry. Then it took another five minutes to figure out how to make squares out of rectangles.
Because in practice, crafting is hard. And parenting three kids in today’s world is hard enough.
I handed the square-ish paper to my daughter, who attempted to imitate the motions demonstrated in the video. It did take under two minutes—for her to decide the project was too hard for her, and to pass the baton to me. This had not been our agreement. But it’s kind of like when I took my son to the science museum and we waited for twenty minutes so he could lie on the bed of nails and then, when it was his turn, he said he didn’t want to, but he insisted I do it instead. And, naturally, I did.
“Oh, honey, you do it,” I told my daughter.
I am not a visual learner. The prospect of assembling an Ikea bookshelf makes my blood run cold. Puzzles make me panic. Truly. The thought that someone would take a perfectly good picture and smash it into a thousand pieces, then sell that mess to someone with the instructions, “Put this back together” thinking it could be construed as fun—that stupefies me.
“I’m terrible at origami,” I said. My daughter gasped.
“Mom, you’re supposed to have a growth mindset!”
(This, of course, is the trouble with educating kids. It comes back to haunt you.)
“How will you ever get good at it unless you try?” she asked, parroting words I’ve spoken to her.