What I Really Meant Was

an essay inspired by Ross Gay

Around 2005, I would have told you that I wasn’t a plant person. What I really meant was that my brother had just died, and I was terrified at the prospect of having to keep something—anything—else alive. Though to be fair, I’d hated bouquets even before the funeral, the blooms cut off from their roots, petals browning and curling, sagging and dropping …