A plant named after a poet

It’s my first day in London. I’m fresher than a daisy with wisps of ocean breeze still coiled in my hair and I do what every new university student does on their very first day: I go to the supermarket. This supermarket feels very different, because I was trying desperately to get into the mindset of a grown up. What do grownups buy?

Apparently grownups buy anti-bacterial wipes, bin liners, a lint roller (this surprised me too) and a pair of yellow washing up gloves, because this is what I filled my basket with. I think the grownup I was modelling myself on was domesticated to the point of neuroses. If you can forgive the inevitable 18-year-old melodrama, this supermarket shop felt like my initial, clumsy steps into adulthood as I questioned for the first time what I wanted my life to look like.

Suddenly, the arbitrary choices I made in these supermarket aisles came to signify much bigger decisions about what person I would become as I stood in the doorway of the rest of my life. I want to be the kind of adult that blows their nose on balsam tissues, not toilet roll. I want my world to smell like fresh linen and earl grey. I’ll send postcards, I’ll always have a pen handy, I’ll wear tote bags from museums, I’ll make good choices, I’ll… I’ll… I’ll buy myself a plant. Yes, a plant will go excellently with my new, grownup aesthetic.

I look at the plants for about 15 minutes, convinced that this must be how adults spend their time. Meanwhile, real adults were trying to squeeze past my rucksacked back, dragging their children to the self-checkouts. I finally settle on a yellow gerbera in a white ceramic pot and I inspect my shopping basket. Yes, my life will be a clean one and it will be filled with plants. We’ve made some serious progress here.

Stepping out onto the street and I am walking on air. It’s like I was born to grow up. With a decisive gesture, I place the plant pot on the windowsill of my new room and study the care guidelines intensely.

Don’t worry little plant, I’m a grownup; you’re in safe hands.

This is what adults do, right? Create a home, take responsibility, bundle all their time, love and affection into things incapable of reciprocating (not necessarily in that order). As far as I was concerned, this plant was my one-way ticket to maturity. No pressure.

To continue in the vein of projecting disproportionate symbolism onto this unsuspecting flower, I decided to give it a name. But not just any name. I decide to name it after the very first writer I studied as part of my degree programme; the Greek poetess, Sappho. Of course there are very few similarities between these two entities. One is a feminist, lesbian icon and an innovator of an eponymously named poetic meter; the other is a plant. Yet, for some unbeknown reason, I felt it to be fitting.

When Sappho’s first flowers wilted I was distraught.

I’m not sure I’m doing this right. This is actually really hard. What else can I give you? What do you want from me?!

After I stopped shrieking into her soil, I decided I might be taking this plant mum thing a little too seriously. So, in true grownup fashion, I referred back to the care guidelines, and cut the dead flowers at their base as instructed. It felt painful. With every cut I could feel my grownup façade collapsing and my supermarket-bought confidence withered along with Sappho’s petals.

Overwhelmed by the relentless introductions of first year, my cheeks hurt from smiling at people and I was beginning to doubt whether independence was in my nature. Being nice to everyone all the time is exhausting. Desperate to find my people, but still so unsure of myself, I seemed to be tripping over my own feet both literally and metaphorically (I fall over A LOT). And now my plant had died on me, I may as well just pack my bags.

You may have noticed the subtle signs (the self-absorbed overreaction to some flowers dying) that I was most definitely still a child. It turns out the Tesco on Edgware Road doesn’t sell maturity. Who knew?

For several days, looking at the white ceramic pot on my windowsill made my stomach knot with guilt, but I continued to share glasses of water and cups of tea with Sappho in the hopes that I could revive her. As the weeks went past I slowly took my roots in London. I learned to get out of people’s way and my walking pace rocketed from leisurely to urgent. I found myself easing into myself and the city in a way I never imagined I would.

I was drawn to people who kissed the ocean in my hair and my firefly words instead of swatting them away. With graphite on my fingertips, I collected friendships like pieces of art, lining them up on my windowsill next to the newly flowering Sappho. My life’s work.

That little plant has eavesdropped on my life for three whole years as London tested my patience, called my bluffs and pushed me to the very edge. My degree that began with reading Sapphic verse and ended with a 10,000-word sigh is over. My breaths are calmer now, my skin thicker; I’ve left disappointment at the bus stop before treading out into the night in heavy, Doctor Marten footsteps.

This morning, Sappho flowered once again.