Friday evening, Noelle, Archie, and I were enjoying the start of our evening mile walk through the neighborhood, when I noticed the ivy growing on the side of a garage next to a funeral home. Its lustrous green leaves poked stiffly from the length of a serpentine stem, which I discovered – upon closer inspection as Archie relieved himself on the less fortunate sections of the plant – clings to the stone facade of the building through a network of small brown roots.
These roots seem to want to do what any root would do: dig into the soil and pump water and nutrients into the stem and leaves of the plant. But long ago, for reasons long forgotten, the ivy decided that it didn’t want to stay on the ground. It wanted to move up, like the happy sunflower or the indomitable oak tree. It wanted its place in the sky. But without a trunk, it knew it had to improvise.
So this badass motherfucking plant was all like, “You know what, imma grow towards the nearest tall thing I see, and ill climb that. Fuck a trunk.”
And so it did. It grew over garages, fences, houses, and even the trees that it had admired for so long. Its emerald glow complimented some of man’s greatest structures dedicated to aristocratic living and higher education. Hell, they even grouped America’s 10 most prestigious universities in a conference that bears its name. When you see it crawling along a stoic brick building or charming white trellis, you know that something classy as fuck is going on inside.
Ivy – this weed that crawled on its belly under the shadow of trees – is now the harbinger of refinement. Because, it decided to be better than what it was.
I wonder what I can decide to be?
