Counting by 7s

by Holly Goldberg Sloan

My second interest: plants. They are living, growing, reproducing, pushing and pulling in the ground all around us at all times. We accept that without even noticing. Open your eyes, people. This is amazing. If plants made sounds, it would all be different. But they communicate with color and shape and size and texture. They don’t meow or bark or tweet. We think they don’t have eyes, but they see the angle of the sun and the rise of the moon. They don’t just feel the wind; they change directions because of it. Before you think I’m crazy (which is always a possibility), look outside. Right now. I’m hoping that your view isn’t of a parking lot or the side of a building. I’m imagining you see a tall tree with delicate leaves. You catch sight of swaying grass in a wide field. Weeds pushing up through a crack in the sidewalk are in the distance somewhere. We are surrounded. I’m asking you to pay attention in a new way and view it all as being Alive. With a capital A.

According to the consultant, Mrs. Grace V. Mirman, the challenge for the parents of someone “highly gifted” was to find ways to keep the child engaged and stimulated. But I think she was wrong. Almost everything interests me.

So I was now officially duplicitous. It didn’t feel good. The middle school years were supposed to be (according to the literature) about an emotional separation from parents. I figured lying was laying a good groundwork for that. But it was as if I’d eaten something that was giving me indigestion. And that burning sensation extended beyond my stomach and moved upward, where it lodged in my neck. Right where I swallowed.

I decided any behavior, good or bad, could become routine. This was probably why people were able to empty porta potties or regulate the quality of canned cat food in factories with actual taste tests.

Quang-ha puts everything in a different place, setting the couch and the chairs on an angle. He doesn’t follow the lines of the rectangle room; he makes his own shapes.

The world’s ultimate pragmatist just shrugs and says: This translates to mean: What we expect rarely occurs; what we don’t expect is what happens.

Apples grow on apple trees. And cherries grow on cherry trees. But we don’t say that an acorn grows on an acorn tree. Things like that are interesting.

I go to the kitchen and I boil four cups of water. This releases the chlorine. I then add one cup of sugar, which easily dissolves because of the heat. I wait for the mixture to cool. This is what I used in the past to feed hummingbirds in my garden. Now I pour the still-warm syrup into a bowl and I go back downstairs. But first I put on my red sun hat. Outside, I take a seat right next to the flowering bottlebrush tree. I dip my hands into the sugary mixture and I sit very, very, very still. It takes a long time, but a ruby-throated hummingbird finally descends and eats from the tip of my unmoving, sweetened index finger.

I will see only what I want to see. It’s possible that’s how people get through crisis. The world where we live is so much in our head.

I have charted out a one-mile loop that travels eight blocks south of the Gardens of Glenwood. It then turns three blocks west. Followed by eight blocks north. And finally three blocks east. On the map, it does not look like much. I’m lucky to still be alive. After two blocks on the course, I get a pain in my left side that feels as if a knife has been implanted just below rib 7 (individual ribs do not have names, and are only referred to as one through twelve, left side, right side). My legs—or more specifically, my calves—tingle, and somehow I have lost all of my strength. My ankles freeze up. The air around me turns thick. I experience so many different health conditions—rapid heart rate, elevated blood pressure, dry mouth, pulmonary shock, muscle spasm—that it is impossible for me to even chronicle the degree of body breakdown. The shocking truth is that I cannot even continuously jog eight blocks south (which was the first segment of the run). At the sixth block I stumble. I feel that I might lose consciousness (and there is no metal elephant coffee table to break my fall). Mai places her hand on my arm and says: “Take it easy. Just breathe, Willow.” I know it sounds crazy, but as I work to control my wheezing breathing pattern, something happens. I go from light-headed to feeling grateful for the gift of life. It must be some kind of blood pressure phenomenon. Dell and Mai walk with me back to the Gardens of Glenwood. I want one of them to tell me that I’ll get bette...

That’s why this running matters. I think that the effort put forward in matters of physical exertion is more important than the outcome. And I’m not just saying that because gym teachers have told me this in the past. A new reality is emerging. I actually like my pink-and-purple flamingo shoes. So maybe the jarring movement of jogging is clouding my judgment. Even though my exercise regime only takes sixteen minutes, I find that I’m thinking about it when I’m not doing it. I know that vigorous exercise changes brain chemistry. In my current situation, there is nothing more I could ask for.

Dell Duke is not a bad person. He is just bad at being a person.

Quang-ha has done more laughing in the last ten hours than I’ve seen in the last ten weeks. He just finds everything funny now. I didn’t understand until recently that emotions could be so contagious. I now know why comedians are important in culture. Sitting on a milk crate in the middle of the night with a flashlight illuminating what at this point is a paint-blasting project, I laugh too. At nothing, really. Then I realize that I’m laughing because I’m laughing.

I’ll be ready. I’m not sure for what exactly. But maybe that’s what being ready really means.

But it’s impossible to please everyone. Now these plants are on the downside of their lifecycle. I need to think of what to do once they are removed. If you slice off part of most established plants—this mature plant can be thought of as the parent—and you nurture this severed portion, it will grow. It is called a cutting.

start small. A basket. Scissors. Wet paper towels (to keep my clippings moist). I have a few small cuttings taking root in water glasses by the window. I need to think bigger. Dell drives me to the Southside plant nursery on Saturday and we buy rooting hormone and three large bags of potting soil.

“Just take stuff out of people’s green trash cans. The work will already be done for you.” I look at him now with admiration. Quang-ha’s mother is the hardest worker that I’ve ever seen. And she has passed on to her son a unique quality. He understands labor in a different way. If he’s not interested in something, he will do anything to get out of doing it. I mean it when I say to him: “Quang-ha, you may very well have a future career in management.” As if to drive home his point he says: “If there are any ice-cream bars in the freezer, I’ll take one.” There have never been ice-cream bars in the freezer, but I now will buy a box at the first opportunity.

It might be like ripping off a Band-Aid quickly. It doesn’t hurt as much because a large component in pain has to do with anticipation.

I realize now that I’m worrying about all of them. It’s better than worrying about myself. This is one of the secrets that I have learned in the last few months. When you care about other people, it takes the spotlight off your own drama.

I have given in. But that’s different from giving up.