What’s Good for Them Is Good for Us

This morning, with the thought that warmer weather might someday arrive, we visited a nursery in the country about seventeen miles north of here, a large wholesale business that welcomes retail customers during the months of April, May, and June. On the way, it rained steadily as we crossed swollen creeks and drove by fields, lakes, and ponds, not always sure which were which. While we were inside the nursery’s expansive greenhouses, the rain came harder and harder, and was so loud we almost had to shout at one another to be heard. The plants were beautiful and well cared for. Knowing we couldn’t plant geraniums in the mud, we bought three small plants to keep inside — a two-inch jade plant to give to our daughter, a four-inch asparagus fern, and a four-inch snake plant, or mother-in-law’s tongue. After paying and exchanging pleasantries with a young woman who, between glances at my bare feet, said her husband is trying to grow a beard like mine — though presumably not as gray — we stepped back out into the rain and made our way through the rapidly growing puddles in the parking area, where three or four other customers were unhurriedly loading plants into their cars, as if to say, What’s good for them is good for us. My feet dried on the way home. An hour later, we ate lunch, and then it hailed. An hour after that the sun came out, the streets and sidewalks dried, and we took a walk through the neighborhood, where a few tulips are finally showing their colors. Back inside, I wrote this note. Pleased that I managed the whole thing with no implied importance or meaning, I stopped here.

April 19, 2023.

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