(Not) Caring for a Cactus

A SHORT STORY

(Not) Caring for a Cactus

When explaining to the florist that it pained me to see my cactus’s quick decline and ultimate death, she described the exact condition Maximilian suffered from, right down to the symptoms of oozing and going limp. She explained that I had watered him too much, that I didn’t leave him be, dry, as his very nature requires, which got me thinking that I had become one of those Jewish mothers. I say Jewish because I only know my own mom as a mom, but from my experience, it seems all mothers no matter their religious background or ethnicity seem to share this. And its even worse with a cactus because they can’t tell you, no more no more I’m full, they can’t say, mom YOU ARE DROWNING ME. And I had done it. I had killed Maximilian with my love, with my poisonous wish to give love and nurture in a way that suited me and was good for me but not good for him.

I thought about what it means to care for someone and how if I had fucked up with a plant, how could I ever bear a child, that maybe I would drown the human before she ever even left my body. And this was a time in my life where it all seemed important in a biological way but not culturally. In your early twenties, you are at that point where you have sort of just come out and entered the world, like a new born yourself. It’s the first time you can really say THIS IS ME in a way that hopefully you are proud of or that seems to fit better than the other times you tried to say that, probably when you were a teenager, basing yourself off characters in books or movies. You’ve probably had sex, perhaps even with more than one person, and this makes you feel like a grown up because when you were a child you heard people say if you are ready for sex you should be ready for the consequences. Though it seemed there weren’t any consequences, you always used a condom and you have been on the pill since you were fourteen, you knew what they meant when they said the consequences; you knew they meant a baby.

So here I am, aged twenty-two, living in London far away from my Canadian parents, from my Canadian brother, my Canadian cat and dog and the bird we always forget about. Its not the first time I say THIS IS ME, and to be honest, I think there have been moments where I have been more confident saying that, even if I changed or was wrong even then. And that sort of feels weird because things have been more consistent than they ever had been. For example, my taste in music has not changed for a few years now which I think says a lot about a person, how quickly their tastes change rather than expand. It seems also my clothing style has not changed in a few years too, maybe two years, even if I have accumulated a lot, more than I need.

Anyway, my body seems to be telling me that its time I bear a child. I think I know this because when I pass babies or even small dogs, I have this internal feeling I am going to throw up from lack and start crying because I am all alone and no one really owes me anything. Its internal, the explosions of awws that come from too much cuteness. I can’t control it, the stare that I can’t break touches something deep inside me, probably something you wouldn’t want to share with your friends who are really dedicated to CEO careers and women taking over the world. Its not that I don’t want this kind of professional success or to be famous or have some kind of non-domestic power, but this baby feeling is something that exists in my stomach and not in my brain.

So you can see how even though I know I am in no position to have a baby, it felt like my ego was being karate-chopped in the neck when Maximilian swelled up and began to look disgusting and smell so bad that I had to throw him out. I had failed him and I knew it. I had failed myself and probably a lot of women too. And even though I was only being a girl in the twenty-first century, and I should probably at this point say a woman, even though I feel I am undeserving of the title, I can’t help but wish I was more responsible and dependable. I can’t help but wish I could keep up with the maturation of my body where never before it seemed body and soul were so dramatically divorced.

The florist handed me a new cactus as she instructed me only to water it once every three months. And just to confirm I said right and keep him in the sunlight and she said no, no direct light and I thought fuck motherfuck what is wrong with me why don’t I know anything. I thought you wouldn’t think it would be a bad thing to want to care for something a lot, that a cactus was probably a really good test of your ability to care because it tests your ability to refrain from caring, which is something a lot of lucky kids probably wish their parents practiced. I left the shop feeling overwhelmed and discouraged and that maybe the reason I was a bad non-mother was because I was artistic and artists have that reputation of being emotionally scattered, splattered even, that they can barely take care of themselves but in turn produce really amazing things, genius things. Maybe I am a genius and that is why I can’t be a mother. No, definitely not, that was not it, not at all. I thought about Martin Creed and Sarah Sze who used cacti in their installations and how they probably hired people to take care of them, or rather to not take care of them during the exhibition period.

I walked for five minutes and then turned back to the store in tears. I was crying so much that I thought probably my tears were landing in the soil that held my new cactus upright. I was watering it unnecessarily and probably had already killed it from all the liquid pouring out of my eyes. I ran back to the shop and aggressively shoved the cactus into the florist’s arms yelling at her I CAN’T DO THIS I’M JUST A GIRL I’M JUST NOT READY I’M SORRY.

I dried my tears and walked to the cinema.