Stephen Mejias

I love this Sobremesa entry.

This relationship between plants and "energy" is something I think about every now and then. I have a plant in my living room. It's a regular plant. You see them everywhere. I don't know what it's called. It's the same kind of plant my grandmother used to have growing all wildly around her kitchen, the "vines" [not sure if that's the right word] wrapping themselves along the cabinets and falling down the side of the refrigerator. When I was younger, I thought it was just a Puerto Rican grandma thing, but I later came to find that everyone's grandma had one.

I purchased mine from the plant and flower shop on the corner of First and Jersey. I chose it from a group of several similar plants, none of which could match my plant's spark and verve. My plant just seemed more ambitious than the others. It stood a bit taller, as though it had straightened its stance, raised its shoulders, asserted itself: "Check me out. I'm the one for you."

On second thought, no, it was nothing that proud. My plant is ambitious, but not cocky. It was more like, "I'll be a good plant. I promise." Wait. No, it wasn't that beseeching. My plant is its own plant, it's never clingy or needy. Let us just say there was some inexplicable chemistry between us. A mutual attraction.

At the time, it was only a little plant, with just a few short vines. Without much help from me, it has grown wild and strong, just as a plant should be, restricted only by the size and shape of its plastic pot. It sits about three feet from the floor on a simple, but attractive, plant stand I purchased from a stoop sale at a marvelous brownstone near the corner of Jersey and Wayne. There was a mutual attraction there, too, but that's beside the point. My plant's vines now trail along the floorboards, and wrap themselves around my speaker cables.

All without much help from me. If I remember, I water it maybe once every week and a half. It gets a decent amount of light, I suppose, but I've decided it's living, basically, on music. It sits, you see, in the corner of my living room, almost directly behind a loudspeaker. (Currently, a Totem Arro.) I'm not sure what its placement there does for my soundstage, but I'm convinced that it does wonders for the plant. Lately, I've been listening to a lot of the new Fucking Champs album, which the plant finds to be a little relentless. How much victory metal can one plant take? It seems to prefer indie-pop, which is understandable.

After all, the plant is getting older now and all, you know. Maybe, as a gift, instead of fertilizer or a digital subscription to Stereophile, I'll buy my plant the new Arcade Fire album. Just because.