Messages from the Houseplants

I never thought of myself as a plant person.

Yes, I did have my obligatory potted fern during college that perished within a month. And then when I moved into my first apartment, I bought a snake plant since someone had assured me it was "impossible to kill." It sat for years in quiet observance in the corner, taciturn and ungrumpy, as I watered it only when its leaves were the hue of weak tea.

But everything changed one rainy Tuesday evening when I noticed something strange.

I was sitting at my kitchen table, scrolling on my phone, when my eyes fell on the pothos creeping lazily off the shelf. On one of its glossy green leaves, pale white smudges streaked across the leaf. I initially thought it was dust or sunlight glinting at a strange angle. But the more I looked, the more I was certain it was meant to be—a half-written word, there for me to finish reading.

The leaf commanded: "Breathe."

I giggled nervously and bent over, certain my brain was playing tricks on me. But the next morning, there was another leaf which had unfolded with another mark written across it, folding into a curl that said: "Listen."

It was a ritual.

Each morning, I received a new word from a different plant of mine. My aloe whispered "Patience." The window peace lily informed me of "Water." The obstinate snake plant, the one I had neglected for so long, told me to "Stay."

I couldn't rationalize it, and I said nothing. Who would have listened if I told them my houseplants were messaging?

At first, the letters seemed like gentle reminders—almost like fortune cookies scattered at random among the leaves. They encouraged me to breathe deeper when work left me taut. They urged me to slow down when I careened through things at high speed. I began watering them more often, trimming their sagging leaves, brushing the surfaces spotless.

The more I cared for them, the clearer were the messages.

Then the storm night came.

The wind howled at my windows, rattling the glass. I was up, so I floated into the living room where the plants stood packed like wordless guards. In the dim light, I saw that nearly every leaf contained something written on it. The pothos penned, "Wait." The fern murmured, "Don't go." Even the cactus, who never spoke before, had a single commanding word: "Stop."

I had no idea what they were talking about—until the morning after, when I turned on the TV.

There was a massive crash on the freeway I normally used to get to work. A tanker truck had overturned and taken out all the lanes. The crash happened at exactly the time I would have been on my way to work.

The plants had warned me.

I paid attention after that.

When I remained too long at my desk, the spider plant on my elbow gently whispered: "Move."

When I spent a Saturday glued to my phone, the jade plant on the couch instructed: "Look up."

When I brushed aside my mounting weariness, the orchid, ethereal and incisive, whispered: "Rest."

They were not just words. They were truths—things that I already knew but did not wish to believe until my houseplants insisted on speaking to me.

I don't know how it's done. Or maybe it exists only in my mind, some psychological trick that I'm playing on myself. Or maybe the plants, ancient and unarticulate observers of the world, know more than I do.

Either way, I've stopped doubting.

My home is different now. The air is denser. The plants stretch towards the light, their leaves breathing and green. And each morning, before I glance at my phone or open my laptop, I glance at the leaves.

Sometimes the messages are short and blunt: "Smile."

Sometimes they are cryptic: "Remember."

And sometimes they are so tender it hurts: "You are enough."

They chuckle when I tell them. They say it sounds like a fairy tale or a dream. Maybe they are right. But when I walk past strangers on the street, I wonder what the messages are that their houseplants are conveying to them.

I at least want someone to listen.

Because I do.

And I will never turn a deaf ear to the voices in the leaves again.