Inklings 2020

When I was ten years old, my father took me to the roof. It was that season that I decided to become a botanist. I had already spent my childhood studying plants, so I thought that I could spend the rest of my life doing this. When I was eleven years old, my father took me to the United States Botanical Garden in Washington D.C.. It was, perhaps, the happiest moment of my life – more so than prom and more than my parents telling me on my sixteenth birthday I would get a horse. As I walked through the lush greenhouses full of mysterious botanicals, I knew I wanted to be surrounded by nature for the rest of my life. For hours, I hid behind purple foliage, marveled at magnificent orchids, and took pictures with my father in front of rare blossoms. My dream of becoming a world-famous botanist surged after visiting the garden that day. When I was thirteen years old, I took my father upstairs to the roof where we planted broccoli. That season, we had the largest harvest of my life: luscious kale, an abundance of scallions that we made into a large bowl of onion dip, cherry red tomatoes, and what seemed to me to be the hottest pepper in the world. We didn’t like peppers then, yet I think we appreciated growing something to give to those who did. Then, when I was fourteen years old, my father didn’t take me to the roof. My days were filled with studying and general school assignments. I never lost interest in botany; I simply lost the time to love it. *** For the past few years, we have gone up to the roof every so often to pick ripe tomatoes and onions. However, I haven’t planted any crops. Perhaps it was due to how the difficulties of nature tested me: when I would pick a deformed carrot, I felt disappointed. Last week, my father took me up to the roof. It was the first time we climbed those stairs in several months. We picked bright green okra, and I joked about the prickly appearance of the plants. My hands stung from their paper-thin needles, yet I felt relaxed inside. It put me back to a time when gardening used to be more important, before college became my sole focus, before high school classwork filled my free time, before I forgot about the important place nature holds in my heart. Now, I remember. 6