Tuesday Evening, a New Leaf on the Windowsill Plant

Tuesday evening, I got home, turned on the light and was taking off my coat when I glanced toward the window. There was a small pot there. I had bought it at the supermarket last month for about five dollars, but I kept forgetting to water it, and one or two leaves lay yellowed against the soil. Every time I saw it I felt vaguely sorry and looked away. That day too, I meant to walk right past. I was standing there with only my coat hung over a chair, not even having decided what to eat for dinner.

But for some reason I went closer. The soil was a bit dry, so I filled a cup with water and poured it in slowly. I could hear the soil drinking it. I stood holding the cup and listened to that sound for a while. Then I saw a little knot of light green at the tip of the stem. It was a new leaf, still folded, not yet opened. It was the size of a fingernail, and I almost missed it. I had been feeling that I'd done almost nothing at the office today, but this small leaf had quietly come out during the daytime hours when I wasn't there.

What I read sitting by the window

I dragged a chair over and sat by the window. It was already dark outside and my face was reflected in the glass. Next to it, the new leaf was very small, but unmistakably green. As I kept looking, my shoulders, stiff all day, loosened a little. I opened still() on my phone.

They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:23 (WEB)

On a day like today, the idea of being new every morning did not come to me easily. It had been a day when yesterday's tiredness seemed to carry straight over into today. But after seeing the pot, the words read a little differently. Newness doesn't always arrive as some big change; sometimes it comes as a leaf the size of a fingernail, while I am not looking. I don't believe tomorrow morning will suddenly feel light. I could only think that tomorrow morning, too, the leaf would be open a little more. Whether or not I did well today, the morning would come again.

I poured in the rest of the water and moved the pot about half a hand's width toward the side where the sun reaches first. For dinner I put an egg in instant noodles. Even while drinking the broth, my eyes kept going to the window. After the dishes, before turning off the light, I looked at the window once more. Even in the dark I could tell where the small leaf was. Sleep well, I said without making a sound. I wondered how far open it would be by the end of this week. I'm not sure whether I said it to the plant or to myself.

Today's breath — Standing at the window, breathe slowly twice and look at one small thing.