July 19th, 2005
06:21 pm - A Eulogy for
a Plant.
R.I.P.
“Chuck”
2002-2005
Chuck was a good plant. Well, what I mean to say is that Chuck was a bad
plant, but I loved him. He was my very first office plant. I purchased him
off the bamboo kiosk in the Camarillo Factory Outlets, right near the Wallet
Store and The Book Retailer for $5. The Chinese man said that I would never
need to provide him with anything other than water. I can handle water. No
sweat. Chuck had the dubious honor of being my very first office plant.
Three years ago I had started at Cal State Channel Islands and after the
first six months of working here I was secure enough to dispense with the
feeling that I might be fired at any moment and I felt I needed some sort of
symbol to celebrate the benchmark of my grown up stability. A plant had all
the metaphorical conations appropriate to this occasion and right in line
with my notions of taking root and thriving. At the time, my office was on
the inside track of a large building which meant I had no windows to the
outside world. In my little cave, I felt very isolated and would often spend
whole days working without contact with another living being, with no
sunshine or fresh air.
I bought Chuck with the intentions of sharing my days with another living
being, to start down the long road of learning to care and provide for the
life of another. Now granted Chuck was just a small bamboo plant, but the
methods were the inherently the same, give sustenance and shelter and love.
I could handle that. He was another token of my continued evolution onto a
compassionate, mature, responsible human being.
I talked to Chuck. Well I didn’t actually say words, but I would “think” to
Chuck. Much in the same way that alien abductees felt aliens communicated
with them, I communicated telepathically with Chuck. He never really had
much to say back, but I was content to allow him to be passive in this
relationship. He was, after all, just a plant. I took much pride in watering
and wiping the dust off his leaves. I felt my day somehow had more meaning
with another being in the same room to share my time with.
It mattered not that Chuck wasn’t what you would call a “sentient” being. It
mattered not that Chuck never felt the glory or despair of consciousness,
never had an existential crisis or never had to question whether to seize
the day. Chuck simply was. And that was all. By his actions I assumed he was
a Buddhist, although we never broached the topic. He was steadfast and
undaunted in his simple existence, a status not even attainable by most of
my human friends, and I loved him and cared for him unconditionally because
if it.
However, not all was well in Chuck’s short life. He seemed to suffer from a
kind of stunted growth, not in a cute “Emmanuel Lewis” or “Gary Coleman”
kind of way, but rather in a creepy "little white dude from the Island of
Dr. Moreau” kind of way. It may have been the very hard CSUCI tap water, it
may have been lack of attention on my part or it maybe he wasn’t meant to
grow, or maybe all three were manifestations of the same destiny: Chuck
never grew. He never sprouted new stalks or new leaves. He never got any
taller. I always wondered if I should have taken the Chinese man at face
value. Did he actually need nutrients and room to grow? Should I have relied
on his advice that all Chuck needed was water? He never got big enough to
necessitate a transplantation from his very small pot into a larger one. I
wonder now in retrospect, if I had taken the liberty of putting him in a
larger pot, would he have grown to meet my expectations? If I had nurtured
Chuck, instead of simply relying on his nature…might I have changed destiny?
I have nothing left but his empty pot to ponder.
I though of Chuck as a bastard child who demanded nothing of life other than
to be taken at face value, lest we have any expectations of him. He was not
a particularly impressive plant. He wasn’t what most would consider
aesthetically pleasing or comely. The room did not become him. With the
later addition of other more presentable office plants as I climbed up the
prestigious “nice office” ladder, the inclusion of Chuck in my office
foliage was almost comical at times. Juxtaposed against what my office was
to become, when compared with the other more successful bamboo plants
belonging to coworkers, Chuck was a distant tail as far as office plants go
but he was the original, my undisputed first love, worthy of as much respect
as any other office plant here.
Chuck was about simple dignity and humility. A poke in the eye to any
pretentious beholder who might scoff at the presence of such a scummy little
plant, whose pot was filled with murky water and hard water deposits,
sitting on such a nice file cabinet, near such a peaceful trickle fountain.
Chuck was no less a plant just because someone else did not approve. He
fulfilled every need I required of him: a companion and a dependant; all
other things were secondary. Observer’s opinions were irrelevant.
Chuck suffered the loss of two of his stocks a few months ago which marked
the beginnings of his decline. I felt that in the last months of his life he
was in pain, or whatever equivalent state plants experience. In a letter I
wrote to Satan, I feel confidant I secured him a nice place in eternity and
am now okay to send the little fucker off to the hereafter. Read my letter [here].
Trying to do what was best for him to ease his last few days, as he was
turning from dark pea green to an ever-spreading orange, I felt I was
prolonging the matter by attempting to sustain him so just before I left on
summer vacation I gave him the ol’ “Shivo” and quit watering him, and
removed him from the sunlight by sticking him in the corner of a book
cabinet and blocking the light with none other than my Jesus Christ Action
Figure. (still in the package)
Chuck is survived by Billy the Ficus and Willard the Sanseveria, brothers
from another mother who thrived well in my office environ and outlived
Chuck, but loved Chuck as much as I did.