Maybe the hardiest living thing in all South Texas —next to cactus (native) or Johnson grass (invasive)—is the common Silverleaf Nightshade.
Here is the memory right out of my mental moth balls: I’m about seven or eight years old and walking the three blocks to school in the early morning. I am proudly toting across my shoulder my bright plastic and cardboard book satchel full of arithmetic workbooks and books with stories that my teachers call readers.
Our street is unpaved until the north east corner of the school. I walk along the fence and notice for the hundredth time clumps of low, dusty green plants with small blue pointy flowers, each with a crown of yellow stamens. As usual, I am day dreaming.
On my seven-year-old mind: If my Mama bought me PF Flyers like they show on TV, could I really run faster?
My present-day mind: Forget the Saturday morning cartoon tennis shoe advertising, kid. I wish I could run just for a minute with your brand-new lubricated knees!
On my seven-year-old mind: Is my best friend Joyce Brown going to invite me to play at her house after school this week? I hope so! She has a dog!
My present day mind: Forget friends and dogs. Pay extra careful attention today to the arithmetic lesson. You are about to overlook a sequence in solving long division problems that will haunt you worse than a ghost.
The years wore PF Flyers and over all the decades the Silverleaf Nightshade followed me into all my yards and gardens.
They are reminders of both my once much-lubricated knees, and also of the abundant and volunteer beauty that nature always provides.
Earlier this week, I saw that a patch of Silverleaf Nightshade had overtaken the paths of our vegetable garden. Before I started up my weed eater, I pulled out a large handful of stems loaded with flowers for a vase on our kitchen table.
Those flowers have brightened breakfast, lunch and dinner all week. Their resilience and persistence are reminders during this pandemic that, as Glennon Doyle writes, “We can do hard things.“
There is comfort is knowing that whether in walking long distances, making and keeping friendships, doing long division, or riding out pandemics or standing up for demonstrations that affirm that Black Lives Matter, always nearby and nearly underfoot stands a little plant with blue and yellow flowers and dusty green leaves.
