Life of plants
2019-2020
Photographs
When I was a child, people often told my mother: ‘Your daughter is a greenhouse plant.’ Sometimes they lowered their voices and thought that I did not hear; sometimes they looked at me from top to bottom - from afar, from where everything is known about those like me. At that moment, I imagined a greenhouse, a small, tightly wrapped with a tape, with traces of my breathing and drops falling from the walls. I sat in it; legs bent under me, and I hear nothing.
Seemed to them that it was something wrong with me. They advised to fortify my personality.
They believed that I should be more fun, louder, more sociable, read less and walk more, make friends, gain weight, go in for sports.
Seemed to me that something was wrong with me. I definitely knew this about myself then and I am sure of it now. I continue being grown with excessive care, an unadaptable plant with a voice too quiet and a body too weak.
I grow them like myself. I water, transplant, wipe, check whether there is a lot of light, check whether there is not enough light, highlight, pinch, feed, poison from pests, cut, water again. I fill the windowsills with plants, I try my best, but they still sometimes die, leaving only roots in the earth, small and so thin.