What My Orchid Knows About Me

Sang-e saboor

We have an orchid in our kitchen window that is now eight years old. Beyond one ice cube a week, I honestly don’t know what we are doing right to keep it blooming twice a year. My orchid maintenance plan is really that limited…though I’ll give myself some credit here—I’ve been consistent! This plant has traveled with us between three different homes. It has bloomed on three different window sills, taking in the sun from different vantage points. It has witnessed our family laugh, cry, practice piano and, because my husband leans Buddhist, meditate. Maybe that’s why it’s so healthy: all that yogic breathing.

One of my M.Ed. students recently shared about a plant project that she does with her high school students. Throughout the pandemic she saw young people in her classrooms struggling with their mental health and decided to try something that was modeled for her as a child. CBC has written about this young teacher that, “to get her students to feel comfortable sharing their fears and anxieties, she thought of the Persian concept sang-e saboor — where confiding in a person or object can help take a person's sorrow away.” What better object to help steal away sorrow than telling one’s secret hurts to a flower? This young teacher brought seeds into her science classroom and then gave her students the opportunity to care for them as they grew. That care meant talking to their seedling. Pruning it. Breathing on it. And something about caring for the growing plant seemed to soothe the young people. She said that the ongoing act of care-turned-self-care had some of them bringing their plants to their desks come exam time. Essentially they nurtured into being their own emotional support plants!

I love this notion so much. Sang-e saboor: Nurturance, through the act of giving something away, is returned to the self in the doing. How powerful to pour out one’s pain into a plant, watering it with tears and anxious thoughts, only to watch it grow stronger with the sharing?

My orchid spends its days in the kitchen with me. And if I take sang-e saboor to heart I might imagine that my flower knows how much pleasure I take in making muffins or delicious soup for people I love, knowing that they will be nurtured by something I’ve created. My orchid must also know that the kitchen is where I do most of my thinking. My planning. My remembering. And though I haven’t literally cried into my plant, I’ve probably sighed heavily in its presence. If over the years my heaviest thoughts and deepest sighs have breathed some life into those purple blooms maybe there is something to be learned from them about listening.

If you have time this week to listen to an episode of the Reframeables podcast you’ll hear our conversation with author and Giller Winner Ian Williams. His book of essays Disorientation: Being Black in the World is an important read at any time of the year (but especially thought prompting as we near the end of BHM).