The Beastly Ivy

My apartment is being taken over by an Algerian Ivy plant, and I'm not going to do a damn thing about it, not anymore. No. It's done. I have spent too many hours trying to re-route the vines that are crawling, leaping savagely, and clinging to anything that comes within reach of its ferocious grasp. That plant can have the living room. It can have the piano, the window sills, the picture frames and sentimental photos of my lost loved ones, including Aria the cat, it can have my desk, my couch, the afghan I crocheted for my grandmother (is that backwards?), it can have the other plants, the desk, the retro green chair, and even the bookcases that fill the closet instead of coats, even the books about gardening, even the books about freaking ivies.

That inveterate, incorrigible plant can have it all, and I will just sit back and watch, stunned and drained as I offer up my residence for greenery sustenance.

There was a time when I loved that plant, when I would have done anything to make sure that it had ample room to grow, free from my belongings, when I would make elaborate wire structures to train the vines, when I would spend hours untangling the arms so that it could be re-potted in healthy, nutrient-rich soil. And I still love it, in a really resentful sort of way. But I am ready to let go, to let it take its own course.

I have had quite the relationship with the Algerian Ivy over the course of my lifetime. It has been something of a family plant, one that has existed in my grandmother's home, my mother's home, and now mine. (No, not the same exact one, silly, but "Ivy" as a species.) My mom's brother, as opposed to my uncle, is an artist whom I have met approximately three times in my life, and he painted a famous portrait of the Ivy that started it all. And ever since then, Ivies, particularly Algerian Ivies, have been immortalized in my family, they have been given a godly status, they are the plants above all plants, the only plant I know of to be featured in a portait among the photos of relatives. So you can understand that I have had a fierce infatuation with the Ivy. A bond. It has been something I have clung to, if you will, as a relic of my ancestry.

Maybe I'm being dramatic. Maybe it isn't really going to invade my space in a recidivous, beastly manner. But one can never tell, and once a plant begins stretching its fingers out in all directions, it is impossible to know the outcome.

You might think I'm trying to be philosophical, speaking of being taken over as a metaphor, but, no, I'm literally just speaking of a plant and its irascible, growling appetite for my things. I'm tired of bending over backwards to make sure that plant doesn't take over my world. Today, folks, I'm surrendering to the Ivy and throwing up my hands in exhasperation. That creepy plant can have it all. I'm done.