why do i love cacti, mommy?

I never had houseplants when I lived on my own, and I didn’t care much for Jenn’s when I moved in with her. I didn’t hate them but I thought some of them looked kind of dumb. I never gave it much thought beyond that.

Then we were offered a collection of giant old cacti and succulents from an old couple, and I realized I’ve had thing for cacti for a while. I just didn’t know it.

drool

The old couple offered us their plants and I felt oddly conflicted because on one hand, I’ve never cared for houseplants and didn’t think I’d want to bring home a bunch more, but looking at their giant old plants and hearing where they got each plant from and how many years they had each of them got me all jacked up on them. The clincher for me was that in my mind, cacti somehow look very 70’s-ish. I don’t know if I’m imagining that or if they were more popular back then but that’s what they remind me of, and that obviously fits right in with my aesthetic comfort zone so I said yes and adopted them. Since then, I’ve been enamoured with the things, spending way too much time staring at them, reading up on them online, thinking about them. I’m a cactus junkie now.

And it got me wondering where this fascination came from, when did it start? Why? I remember when I was really little, my mom bought me a tiny cactus from a store in Duncan. I thought it was pretty neat but no more so than any of the other childhood junk I had back then — my fave Transformers toy, a rock I kept for years and years, one of those tiny umbrellas that comes in your drink at kitschy restaurants. I was fond of all these things but wasn’t nuts about any of them. I don’t feel anything for those things, or that first childhood cactus, now.

This giant sequoia in residential Victoria, BC blows my mind. It’s so huge, so out of place. It’s awesome.

The next cactus memory I have is when Jenn and I went to a cactus garden in Hawaii. Normally I don’t care much about gardens but when she suggested we check it out, I was like YES, LET’S GO. And I loved it. There were so many different kinds, many of them weird and alien-looking. Jenn’s mom is a big gardener so I thought she’d be interested to know we went to the cactus garden but she was dismissive. “Bah, cacti. Boring,” she said, or something to that effect. I couldn’t believe it, how could a plant person not love the only kinds of plants that get me excited? Wait, that’s a lie. I love big trees too. Anyway.

That’s all I can think of regarding my cactus fascination. I had one when I was a kid, went to a cactus garden like eight years ago or something, and now think they look 70’s-ish. That doesn’t seem like it should be enough to elicit such a strong reaction from me now so I wonder if there’s something else I’m forgetting. The only other plant hard-on I ever had was for a Venus flytrap I also had when I was a kid but I don’t associate that with cacti at all so I don’t think that plays into this.

Hmmm. Something else I just thought of is that cacti often remind me of dried up old desert towns, like the ones Jenn and I have checked out on road trips, like this.

I like that association a lot, for sure. That sad, beautiful, bittersweet feeling is one of my faves to bask in.

I think that’s it. I think between the 70’s thing and the bittersweet desert ghost town thing, that’s it. It’s funny though because I was expecting some sort of childhood memory to burst through or something like that. But it’s kind of neat that it’s just a new passion of mine, like synthwave/chillwave/retrowave, something that clicks with me now. Maybe I’ve grown as a person, egad. Sounds crazy but I suppose it’s possible.

mud people

i’m dying.

not any quicker than usual or anyone else. i just like to ruminate on the fact. and not because of any goth tendencies. in fact it’s because of quite the opposite, and very hippie dippy: i think death can be a beautiful thing.

“hurry tommy, it’s almost time for us to exit this mortal coil”

i think about all that great cycle shit, how plants and crap grow from dirt and water, we eat them to sustain ourselves, and eventually we die, decay, and also become dirt and water. i like to think about my body becoming the soil that will grow corn or trees or whatever, that parts of me will be in those plants, that animals will eat those plants made from me, that parts of me will become become parts of those animals or be shat out to become dirt again and give rise to more plants and feed more animals, and on and on. i won’t be recognizable but the tiny particles that make up my brain, bones, and meat will continue on in these various other incarnations. i think that’s incredible.

we probably believe some of the same stuff, but she’s a whack job.

we get really focused on us and our problems — i want to go on nice vacations, these red peppers are too expensive, i don’t want to do this fucking online course —  but in the big picture, none of that junk matters. sometime in the not so distant future, we will disperse and become part of the earth and all the myriad things on it. that inspires a real sense of grand unity in me, a sense of oneness that is based in reality rather than the incoherent ramblings of some incense- and chime-cloaked hipster yoga dipshit driving a sporty mini cooper. and i like that.

and looking at the even bigger picture, when this planet is eventually swallowed by our sun, all the dirt and plants and animals will turn to ash and dust and likely scatter throughout space, or get sucked into a blackhole, or something along those lines, and end up becoming part of something else. that’s amazing! so i like that too. all that ‘we are stardust’ nonsense isn’t nonsense after all.

and that’s why i like death.

living is great too. i’m having a good ol’ time. i’m just not too worried about what comes after.

“he tastes like shit.”
“yeah but he’s content.”