I
n September of this semester, I made one of, if not
the most, significant purchases of my 21 years to
date: a houseplant.
But this purchase wasn’t just your standard, run-of-
the-mill desktop succulent (though don’t get me wrong,
I have one of those too). This was a glorious fern, with
slender green branches overflowing from her pot and
smelling of earth and living things; carefully selected
from her almost-but-not-quite as equally formidable
peers at the Ann Arbor Farmers Market.
Late September in Ann Arbor is an unequivocally
wonderful time of year. The city becomes the setting of
those homey-feeling movies I watched as a child, the
kind of films where kids run through crunchy leaves to
catch the school bus and the perfectly-coiffed mother
has a plate of fresh baked cookies on the counter every
afternoon.
Late September in Ann Arbor is when
color-coding class notes is exciting, not
draining; when every fleeting moment
of eye contact from the boy who sits by
the door in class feels like a budding
new love affair; when I’m suddenly
grasped by the all-consuming desire to
buy a houseplant for my room.
A fern is not a freshman year of
college purchase — where would it have
fit in my South Quad dorm? Would it
live between the mini-fridge stuffed
with bags of Franzia and the piles of
undone laundry? A fern is also not a
sophomore year of college purchase —
the year seven friends and I crowded
under the roof of a shoddily-maintained
house with squirrels living in the walls
and a dishwasher overgrown with
mold; when we huddled together in the
living room in winter to try and stay
warm while the windows rattled from
lack of insulation. Junior year, perhaps,
but the one semester I spent in Ann
Arbor during this era was too largely
spent anticipating the next semester
abroad to even contemplate committing
to something as serious as a houseplant.
So here I was, late September in
Ann Arbor, a senior with a Kerrytown
apartment finally nice — or rather,
clean — enough to justify buying a fern. I was feeling in
love with life in the way that I always am during this time
of year, thrilled to be back in my own college town after
a semester abroad, ready to set down roots for a while.
And so my new fern friend entered my life.
Said purchased fern took her rightful place on my
mantel. Yes, my room this year has a MANTEL —
seems fake to me too. In her new home, my fern nestled
between stacks of books and other colorful knick knacks
I crowded around her. An old doll swiped years ago from
my grandma’s extensive collection, a $2 ceramic jar from
Salvation Army, an old perfume bottle, all came together
to create the perfect bohemian scene — framed against a
backdrop of an old map of Paris, lest anyone forget that I
went abroad.
For a week at least, I wouldn’t shut up about my new
houseplant. Owning a plant, a real plant that’s not a
minimal maintenance succulent, felt huge. Assuming
sole responsibility for a living, growing thing was a task
that I was ready and able, excited even, to take on.
And it wasn’t all giving, either — my new fern friend
contributed just as much to my life as I exchanged in
the currency of water and the opening of blinds. A room
with a living, green entity feels drastically different than
a room without. My personal space was alive, revitalized,
reflecting the buoyant late September energy I was
feeling toward school and life and things to come.
But somehow September has a way of ending, and
October also has a way of stumbling by, and before
anyone seems to have time to consciously process it, it
becomes November in Ann Arbor.
And November in Ann Arbor is fundamentally,
monumentally different from September in Ann Arbor.
November in Ann Arbor is when the sun starts to set at
5 p.m., when you walk out of class and it’s already night
and the tips of your ears are somehow always freezing.
November in Ann Arbor is skipping class to try and catch
up for another class and falling deeper into a hole of being
behind — the constant pressure of impending deadlines
building up until the only task that feels doable is curling
up under comforters in bed. November in Ann Arbor
is when the shadow of job and internship applications
becomes unavoidable, hovering ominously over the
collective college consciousness and making its presence
known at every possible opportunity. Friends sit across
from each other at tables in Espresso Royale or the Ugli,
so wrapped up in their own anxieties and thoughts that
conversation feels stifled, fake and forced. November in
Ann Arbor, in a word, is bleak.
Four years later, this bleakness still catches me by
surprise. I was raised in an eternal summer — in the
valleys of Southern California where the sun washed
out and blurred together months. November was but
an abstract concept. Growing up, I’d pictured the joy of
September; an image pieced together through books and
back-to-school displays in Target that sung the praises of
orange and red trees and apple cider. Christmas movies
and Budweiser commercials had given me a romanticized
view of December with fresh, beautiful, clean white snow
and carols and falling in love at skating rinks.
What lay in between, however, was an entirely new
animal. Nobody makes movies about November.
And November is somehow even worse this year
— because I can see the physical manifestation of the
month in my fern, the friend that I purchased in that
wave of late September optimism and sunshine. She’s
a little brown around the edges
these days — I’ve watched as the
leaves at the tips of her branches
crisp up and flutter down. The
promise my fern exuded during
those early autumnal days feels
a bit diminished, dried up, passé.
Which of course makes me feel
enormously guilty. I probably
haven’t
been
watering
her
enough, or maybe too much? I
definitely don’t always remember
to open the blinds before I leave
for class in the morning. As
November has worn me down, it’s
also worn down my capacity to
look after living beings — whether
that be my fern, my friends,
or myself. November tends to
feel like an excuse to draw into
myself and listen to Bon Iver for a
month, without investing myself
in the opportunities and people
and going-ons around me — a
hibernation more acceptable in
previous years when I didn’t have
a living, green entity dependent
upon me for her very existence.
But I think my fern is going
to
pull
through.
On
closer
examination
the
other
day,
it’s really only the tips of a few branches that have
gone entirely brown, and there’s even a few sprigs of
fresh growth poking out from the pot. She’s definitely
struggling a bit more than she was in late September, but
also most certainly still alive and fighting.
My fern and I are still helping each other out. I’ve
been trying to water her more regularly, and she’s
still putting out some nice green living energy into my
personal space during a time of year when everything
else can feel gray.
And — most importantly — November is almost over.
Which, I think, can be agreed upon as being a very good
thing. And as much as I believe that November is just a
universally bad time for the houseplants of the world,
I also simultaneously have a feeling my fern is going to
love December in Ann Arbor.
3B
Wednesday, December 4, 2019 // The Statement
3B
BY MEGHANN NORDEN-BRIGHT, STATEMENT COLUMNIST
Love Letters to Ann Arbor: On
houseplants and November
PHOTO BY MEGHANN NORDEN-BRIGHT