Sensuous

22 April — Thursday

Two more leaves on the philodendron.

Spikes, both of them, and soon one and then the other will unfold into angular heart-shaped leaves, large and bright green and beautiful, gradually darkening as they age, and other spikes will sprout and unfold, and this will go on and on, with the plant getting larger and larger, more and more and ever more leaves on it. Next spring it will be ready for a larger pot. I have read about potting it, repotting it — one removes it gently from its present pot, spreads out the roots, fits them into the new and larger pot, gradually tamps soil around them, waters the whole thing thoroughly, tamps more dirt, waters again, and lets the thing get itself together in its new home.

You get to do this every spring as the plant gets larger and larger.

And then I suppose eventually it dies. The book doesn’t say anything about them dying of old age sooner or later, but everything does, doesn’t it? Nothing is eternal, not even a philodendron.

Of course it could be eternal in a sense. You can take cuttings from the thing now and then, and root the cuttings in water and then plant them, and presto! you have a new philodendron plant, a son or daughter of the old plant, or an equivalent of the old plant, or whatever you want to call it.

You can fill up your house with philodendrons that way. Have the whole kitchen cluttered with glasses of water each containing a cutting or two. Litter the apartment with pots of plants, and repot each plant in the spring, and throw away the old plants when they die, and...

Shit shit shit shit shit

Oh, what is the point of all of this, of any of this, for me or for all the philodendrons in the world? What on earth is the point of it all? Life goes on and death goes on and nothing adds up to anything.

I cannot look on the bright side because I do not think there is one. The bright side is done with mirrors, silvered glass, and is no more real than the world Alice found. Walk through mirrors and find a world with a bright side where things make sense, but on this side of the mirror everything adds up to nothing at all.