Dear Neighbor,
I do not pray, but I often think of your garden before I go to bed, the white stakes poking out of the ground labeled with the name of seeds, a sort of prayer themselves. The ground here is slick and muddy when it rains and has to be scraped from the sidewalks and back into beds, so you must have bought soil and laid it out for everything to take root before you began to plant.
I don’t know your name, but I’ve seen you from a distance, tending with your windows open and soft music playing. When I walk the dog, I don’t go near your door, because I’m afraid I’ll look and see only dirt. The heat here can strangle things. It seems like the wildflowers go faster every season.
When Logan and I were dating, we bought a succession of $4 basil plants that we could not keep alive even though we were madly in love. We were, in fact, so in love, that when the plants died, one by one, I did not think of them as metaphor for our relationship. We just bought cut basil instead.
I haven’t had the impulse to nurture something with roots in almost five years, but I was recently gifted two plants: first a succulent, then an orchid so purple it looks like the color is about to bleed from the edges of its petals. I hope to keep them alive, even if prior experience has taught me that may be unlikely. I put them on my desk, read the watering instructions carefully.
On average, I’ve moved once a year since I can remember. This is only the second lease that Logan and I have renewed. My mother visited recently and every time she brought the dog back from a walk, she also returned with entire histories of people in our building who I’ve never even nodded at. I’m not neighborly and I don’t nurture things well. But I think of you and your garden often and I hope that it thrives.