Ghosts of Gardens Past

I used to covet this garden. 

This is the view from the bedroom of my first New York apartment, a perfectly lovely (if cramped) second-story pad I shared with two friends from college. It took me some time to get my city sea legs. (Case in point: The subway used to overwhelm me so much that I routinely sobbed on my commute home from work.) I had a kind of suburban ennui: I missed our cedar windowboxes and my mom's containers overflowing with geraniums. Sure, I was within walking distance of parks, community gardens, and other hemmed-in green spaces, but I missed plopping down on a plot of land that was mine. 

This is my parents' backyard. 

I missed it desperately, every day. I felt its absence in my guts and in my bones. I ached for space, for solitude, for sand stuck under my fingernails. When I went home, I used my phone to record the sound of waves lapping against the beach at night, hoping that I could use it later to drown out the city noise and lull myself to sleep. 

I started planting. 

First, I rooted some pothos in little plastic cups of water in my very first cubicle.

Then, I bought myself a croton, echevaria and jade for my 23rd birthday. This was my first windowsill garden. These days, every surface is packed with pots angling for the light.

I still don't have a garden that's totally mine. But tending to my flowers makes me feel less of an acute need for the muffled lake sounds on my phone. I'm learning to grow here.