I killed four basil plants before this one. I want to say that first, before anything else, because I think the instinct to open with the win is exactly the thing I'm supposed to be unlearning.
Here is what happened: I sat with it. The plant, I mean — actually sat, on the floor, for eleven minutes, not filming, not narrating it to anyone in my head, and it was the worst eleven minutes I've had in a long time, because I realized I don't know how to just look at a thing.
I keep starting sentences the old way — "and if there's one thing I've learned—" — and stopping myself halfway through, because there isn't one thing I've learned, there's just a woman on a floor with a plant she hasn't killed yet.
Is this what it felt like. Before. I'm asking sincerely — someone here has to remember what it felt like before it needed an audience to be real.
no cameras past this point. I mean it more than I've ever meant it and I still don't fully trust the sentence.
no cameras past this point