Tuesday, May 13, 2025

Ivy and Me

Ivy was never a girl. No, Ivy is a plant. You can't tame her. A wild plant. Crazy, maybe. She grows where she wants, climbs where she shouldn’t, clings to brick and bone and doesn’t let go. (Try ditching the "she" for "it", don't encourage the metaphor; a much better idea.) You cut it back and it comes again. You burn it and the roots wait out the fire. It has a kind of green hunger I don’t understand but almost admire. 

There is something in that stubbornness. Something in the way it never quits, but I can only watch so long. I can only let it grow so far. Enough is enough. I took the knife. I cut it down. The sweat of my brow and the cuts on my hands, the infernal dust it generates but yes, still in those moments I knew it would come back. Things like that always do.

Then the darker day dawns when you realize that the Russian Vine is gingerly making a comeback now. When you cut the dense ivy down, all that fresh sunlight hit onto the sleeping vine ... all of life is emptiness and chasing the wind.

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