what doesn’t die

I’ve been thinkng that what doesn’t die, grows. All of the dry sticks with straw roots that I planted last month have new growth. Even some flower bulbs (I forget already what kind) that I stuck in soil two months ago, are putting out tendrils. The cinnamon fern — that I threw in the woods after the dried out husk I planted looked like it was getting moldy but tthen I rescued because a google search discovered that it’s supposed to look like that so I replanted it — is sprouting leaves all over.
I kill carpenter bees and the hoardes of spiders invading the place because if they don’t die they will grow I hate killing anything, and I stay out of their spaces as long as they stay out of mine.
I think the converse is also true: what doesn’t grow, dies. Oh, maybe not as quickly as the black spider I almost stepped on as I was getting out of the shower today, and there are lots of kinds of dying.
when she woke yesterday morning, she kept repeating “who died…. what are you not telling me….who died….what are you hiding from me…” she cried and cried, wouldn’t lie down. “who died….who died…..am I dying?…” you do your best to calm her fears, but irrationality wins out and she finally wears herself out, sits in her chair by the table at the window and stares at the unoccupied bird feeders, waiting, it seems, for someone to answer.
I look around at some of the old, old trees around here. Each spring they start again to grow a little more. If I don’t grow, I will die a llittle with each turn of season.
It is spring. I need some fertilizer.

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