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around. "I didn't mean to startle you, and I didn't mean to intrude on your private... fern potting. I know that potting ferns is really private, and I just didn't think that me potting ferns would be so horrible." She cocked her head. "Anyway, I'm sorry."

"Why?" she asked. Great. She was going to make me wallow in it.

"Well, for invading your space, for violating your tradition, for robbing you of your meditative time, for marring your day's peace-" She cut me off with a laugh.

"Oh, Katie! I meant why would you apologize for offering to help me with my gardening?" My mouth hung open, still in the shape of the word "peace."

"It was wonderful that you asked. I think the fact that you offered, even though you don't know very much about gardening, shows a lot of generosity." She sighed.
"Katie, I have to be honest with you. Ryan's told me all about your unique gift with plants." She smiled sympathetically. I felt my face redden. It was true; she'd heard the ferns screaming.

"I think it's funny and unexpected. In a million years, I never would have guessed that you seem to kill plants. You're so warm and giving with people and animals. But Ryan's told me about the tomato plants; how you salted their soil to make the fruit taste better." She chuckled. "And the incident with the weed whacker, when you tried to prune a grapevine. And-"

"the water lily?" I asked.

Kristy sprayed coffee all over the kitchen floor. She'd heard that one, too.

"The point is I love my garden. So you probably shouldn't help me with it. It would be like me rewriting a story you spent four years creating. It's better for everyone if I just read it, admire it, and respect you for having created it. You don't have to participate in my work. Just sit and enjoy this place while you have it. Soon you won't have anything really green to look at anymore."

I accepted the hard truth: I'll never coax moist green pea shoots from a planter; I'll never invite my earthy long-haired friends over to meditate beneath my clematis-covered veranda, and I will never, ever pot my boyfriend's mother's ferns. I cannot do it. What I can do is write ten rhyming couplets on the color green while squeezed in between a stroller and a banker on the downtown 4 train at 5:30 on Friday.

Just living in this city requires full-throttle focus. Everything I see, from my apartment, from my office window, from eye-level when I'm dashing down the sidewalk trying to seal the piping hot spit from the blistering coffee I just bought for my boss who will whine and pout if the plastic white lid isn't spotless when I discreetly place the steaming cup on the marble coaster her desk, everything in this city is hard. Cement, brick, asphalt, iron, brokers, beggars, surly cab fenders. For a girl who grew up in Colorado and a guy from rural Washington, living in this place is like a constant game of hide-and-seek: we're hiding in plain sight, holding our breath; we're thrilled and we're terrified.

It helps to remember that we don't have to excel at everything, that even the barking cabbies, polished traders and schmoozing producers would be banned from Kristy's garden. After all, she wouldn't realign their tires, disassemble their portfolios, or chuck their storyboards. She gardens. I don't. The ferns have stopped screaming.

Learn more about this author, Kathleen Small.
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