suerte

In warm weather climates, cacti are perennial. My mother tells me that when I was born in December in Palo Alto, there were roses in bloom. I have romanticized this image all my life. I am happiest when there are plants around. I eat a chicory leaf and taste the earth it was grown in. It’s bitter in a tangy, mellow sort of way. I savor every bite. Every year some of my plants die and I replace them with other, springier plants. The philodendron that trails down my bookcase is eight stems that were plucked from the one in my dad’s apartment. I joked that I was giving it a haircut. His is no longer bent over, bald and bushy all at once, much like my dad, or Larry David. I go on vacation and joke about filling my suitcase with cuttings to propagate, unsure if that constitutes eco-colonialism. There is life in winter, root vegetables and deer skittering over the snow, but maybe you just can’t see it. I made it through January. I made it through a week of February. The snow fell just in case. This trip made it out of the group chat. Soon, I’ll plant my garden plot and sprinkle fresh herbs in my food but I won’t be able to taste the soil, not like I can here. I stopped eating meat thirteen and a half years ago and I barely think about the weight of that choice. Austin accommodates. We eat plates piled high with nutritional yeast wrapped tofu. We eat heaps of guacamole and lick tajin off of the rims of pink plastic cups that we sneak out of the bar. We eat sourdough focaccia, fresh from the oven, with vegan whipped mushroom butter. I feel like myself again. My hair hangs heavy and golden down my back. I want for nothing. I tell Raquel her eyes are the color of a soba noodle. I am soft, soft, soft, in the equatorial sun. I have prickly pear cactus edges too, like a marshmallow that rolled around a rock quarry. I am learning where to find myself on the map. This is all I know how to be.