SHARP TONGUES
One day, in the center of my old, over-watered sansevieria I discover a young, lighter green shoot. Sometimes referred to as “Snake Plant” after the clever barbing words that tricked Eve, it was called the “Mother In-Law” plant in Georgia where I grew up. I thought that meant that a small piece of frond put in her food would kill her, but it actually refers to her sharp tongue. A bite of the succulent will kill her and also cats and dogs, but according to folklore, carrying a piece in your pocket is protection against negative energy. I had half entertained the idea of sticking the ugly Snake Plant in the garage where some light comes in from the glass.
But I kept asking myself: Do I have to keep something because it is old and has stories attached that I probably will never use? Can I live without this thing or person? Will it matter in the long run? Is every person or plant and tree sacred, meant to be cared for and honored, even if aged and ugly? It stayed on my fireplace, along with all of the other plants.
Watering every Friday, as if the soil, root structure, and needed light were the same for all—was I wrong to treat every plant the same? Should I have paid special attention to each one? Snake plants need water between every two to eight weeks and they can live up to 25 or more years, which is longer than I have left.
My plant has ten long pointed fronds, the longest and strongest being forty-two inches. I would like to cut that frond off at the base. But I can’t accept the responsibility of injuring or abandoning this plant. I know its history: It came from a cutting a neighbor gave to my Grannie Johnson to root. She gave four underground rhizomes in the center of a concrete block to her oldest daughter, Mary Lynn, my mother’s oldest sister. When Aunt Mary died, her children, wanting to make quick money off of selling their mother’s house, put all her furniture, pots and pans, and plants on the street for people to take. When my mother heard about this, she drove alone in the dark and rescued all of Mary’s plants including ten African violets and this Snake Plant in its concrete block. Mama added them to her three walls of plants in what she called her “Florida” porch with its two seven foot tall shelves full of what she called “Wandering Jew.” Across the ceiling she stapled vines which somehow stayed green. She loved to sit out there every morning, reading the paper and clipping coupons.
When my mother died, the first thing my willful sister did was throw all the plants into a rented dumpster and rip down the vines. I grabbed the Snake Plant and said I wanted to keep it. “Whatever for?” my sister wanted to know, and I didn’t have an answer. I had flown to mama’s funeral from California and couldn’t possibly take it back with me on the plane.
My sister surprised me by keeping the plant for me. When I moved to North Carolina, she drove it from Miami, in the floor behind the driver’s seat, up to Concord. Most of the fronds were bent or out of the dirt, but it had survived, and was still in its concrete block. I went to the nursery and bought it a large, fine clay pot with painted dragonflies around the base, added it to my collection, and proceeded to care for it the same as the other plants, fertilizing and misting and watering once a week.
It began to die like an old manuscript with only 200 words added to it every six months. The fronds no longer stood upright on their own. Some turned yellow, then black. Do I have to keep something because it is old and has stories attached it? Can I live without this thing? Is every word, person, or growing plant and tree sacred, meant to be cared for and honored?
I kept it. Then, in the center of the old lanky plant, I discovered a young, lighter green shoot.
©Bonnie Schell
May 7, 2020