For The Love Of Tulsi

            "What happened?"  I asked. "You were doing so well!" I thought all my pleading was finally beginning to pay off.

            "Well", began my husband from the kitchen table, "I'll admit, I had a routine going for a while and then I got lazy."

             I give him a funny look as I peer around the corner of the living room wall and he looks more than guilty, maybe even a little bit ashamed.

            But it wasn't him I was talking to. Even though I had been after him for months to eat well and exercise to lose the last fifty pounds he had gained as he headed into his 50's, all to no avail, I was actually talking to a frail and needy plant I was in the process of watering. "Tulsi" the plant is my latest burden from an offer to help out a friend. No stranger to speaking too soon when it comes to hearing stories of life's trials and tribulations, I am always the one who offers to help. I'll watch your dog or paint your living room and yes, I have a rug shampooer! Just give me a chance to get out of my pajamas and I'll be right over.  

            Tulsi had been the beloved plant of my good friend Radhika. The original, mother plant lived in India, where the hot, dry weather and monsoon rain season provided a perfect growing environment for this particular herb. They can grow to be shrub size and are nicknamed "holy basil" due to their medicinal qualities. A small piece of this Indian plant made its way to a Hindu community in New Jersey and was nurtured, cultivated and passed on successfully over a period of years.

            Radhika is an Indian Vaidya, which is the equivalence of an American physician. She received a potted split of the New Jersey plant from Raja Pammy as a gift. Raja Pammy, a holy woman, knew that Radhika could put this wonderful plant to good use in her Ayurvedic practice. Tulsi found its home, in Lancaster, MA for the duration of Radhika's stay.

            I worked with Radhika while she was in Massachusetts and shared Ayurvedic meals in her kitchen where we cooked, talked and confided in each other as a wonderful friendship formed. Radhika is well educated and an avid herbalist, using an array of plants and spices to work her healing magic in Ayurveda. Holy basil is an herb of choice applied to many ailments with a great rate of success and I was amazed at its potency. Not only did it bring about healing, it tasted great in many of our Indian dishes and I gained an increasing amount of respect for this herb.

            I noticed that Radhika carried it under her arms, pot and all on cold December mornings and brought it from the kitchen where it was warmer next to the stove, to her office in the afternoon. Tulsi, she taught me, preferred warm and moist environments, loose, soft dirt, lots of sunshine and terra-cotta pots. I guess this special treatment helped make up for the difference between Indian and American soil and weather patterns. Here in New England, we have no true rainy season. Although some New Englanders will argue this point, we don't have many long heat waves either, just hot days, mixed with rain during the summer months. Some of our states, like Maine, don't even get very hot at all!

            When it comes to indoor plants, we are a country embedded in our love of plastic. Where all of my indoor plants are in plastic planters of various colors, Radhika uses only ceramic planters, like the ones she uses in India. Thus, the preference for clay, terra cotta pots. She believes the clay pots fool the plants into thinking they are in the ground next to rocks, in fresh soil.

            When our current jobs in Massachusetts came to and end, I decided it was time to retire. After a lifetime of accounting positions, I felt I had made my mark and was looking forward to pursuing old hobbies and exploring new ones. My "easy" time had arrived and the lazy days of summer would now become a part of my life all year round!  I told Radhika all about my plans for writing, gardening and building stone walls.

            Radhika, rather than seeking employment right away, decided to travel back to India to visit family for a while and would eventually end up back in the states. For the time being, she needed a change to practice "living in the present" and had forbidden herself from looking very far ahead into the future. I thought this was kind of funny, since we are always living in the present,  but if you attach a higher purpose to this and make it a practice, you become more aware of who you are, where you are now, and that leads into where you are going a little less haphazardly. Sometimes, I think we need to do more of this,  making a hiatus a distinct and personal part of our busy lives.

            There came the question of dividing and giving away her living herb collection and there was no shortage of takers at the clinic where we worked. Each plant came with instructions and supplies with baggies full of organic compost and a lesson on what medical qualities could be expected, including how to make skin pastes, teas and brews. I watched intently as each new plant owner was briefed and the pride that they exhibited as a chosen caretaker. It was a very engaging and ceremonious process.

            Still, as all this was going on, Tulsi was being carted from office to kitchen and back daily, still being cared for and loved and I just assumed that this special piece of India, via New Jersey would return home with Radhika. Several people asked about it, but Radhika always told them that she had special plans for it and in time, she would find its proper place, as it was truly her most precious plant.

             I was a bit taken back, when on the last day of work, she took me aside and asked me if I would become the new caretaker of Tulsi. After being filled with admiration and respect for this new friend of mine, I was more honored than I could say. I alone had watched the care she put into this plant. I was the one asked to watch over it in her absence as business took her away for a day or two. And it was I that was taught how much could be trimmed off for use and how much light, water and love it needed. To Radhika, it made sense that it should end up in my care.

            I figured that when Radhika returned to the states, after I had gotten Tulsi, to grow, radiant and bushy, I could ship it by plane or mail wherever need be. I had a strong desire to impress her with my green thumb and make her feel sure that she made the right choice. Tulsi would come to live with us and now that I was going to be home full time, I could nurture her exactly as Radhika had and reap the same results.

            Somehow, I underestimated raising Tulsi about the same as I underestimated raising teenagers. Teenagers were trying. Tulsi was just as needy, stubborn, one sided and incorrigible!  I underestimated the amount of time and effort Radhika had placed in caring for Tulsi. She made it look easy and I thought that was due to ninety percent watering and ten percent love. I couldn't have been more wrong.

            For the first couple weeks, I placed Tulsi on an end table in our living room, under a window that had direct sunlight for about half  the day. It was on a wall that housed a base-board heater, for added warmth, and close enough to me as I puttered about in the kitchen. The room had a television that was on most every night for background noise and the smell of cooking would be something familiar. Even though our American cooking doesn't smell as poignant and spicy as Indian food, it was still a nice, homey smell and I was sure, after an adaptation period, Tulsi would flourish.

            The first few weeks were tough and although she lost a few major branches, I simply crushes the leaves as they turned brown and put them in our soups and casseroles. I figured an adaptation period was a normal adjustment and she would bounce back eventually. I watered and heated her as Radhika had done and hoped for the best.

            After about half of the leaves had died and the new growth stopped I began to panic a little. What was I doing wrong?  A month should have been enough time to acclimate to the new environment and my kitchen wasn't all that different from Radhika's. What needed to change?

            I thought back to Tulsi's former daily routine. Radhika would bring her up to her room at night  (she lived on premise) and then down to the kitchen in the morning. Sometime during the afternoon she would move her to her office window sill to take advantage of late, westerly sunlight. Tulsi was always placed facing north or east, a Hindu belief that facing west had particularly grave consequences and facing south was quasi-consequential, depending on the time of year and personal circumstances. Radhika never walked Tulsi through a western facing door and stayed away from certain window sills for reasons I still don't understand. Tulsi was in constant motion and harmony with Radhika.

            How could I duplicate such devoted care? I had twelve other houseplants that I cared for and they all thrived for years with a little sunlight and water. I particularly chose the hardiest of plants and often left them unattended to for days at a time while I was away. They died a little at times, but I cut off the dead parts and new growth sprouted even more aggressively after their "plant haircut."  It was almost effortless to live with my peace lilies, pothoses and dracaena  marginatas, but Tulsi, I was learning, was different. Tulsi demanded nothing less than adherence to hindu superstition and constant movement and attention. She showed her discontent with me and my plant rearing habits by failing to thrive.

            Believing that I would be returning her to Radhika and wanting that to be under good circumstances, I stepped up our routine. Since my bedroom was in the basement, with very little light, I figured that would be a good place for her to sleep and I started carting her downstairs to my bedside end table nightly. In the morning I brought her up to the kitchen with me and I chatted as I drank coffee and planned my morning. I kept her away from the living room table I had been putting her on because it faced west. Instead, I moved her to my office where she heard the daily clack-clack of my keyboard and sat right in front of me as I wrote stories of life, love and friendship. At times, I'd read her a few paragraphs where I'd been particularly clever and although I didn't get a reaction, she didn't give me as many dead branches.

            Although I still watered and pruned her, the tables were turning toward the ninety percent love ratio and I was getting used to having companionship as I went through my day. It was nice, in a way because being alone and working from home can take its toll on you. Most people underestimate the joy of going to work on a daily basis and interacting with co-workers. No matter how annoying it may seem at the time, being part of a group has its benefits and Tulsi's company, no matter how one one-sided, was harmonious. I envied my husband when he told me office stories and bragged of group lunches out among other earthly inhabitants. He tried to belittle the joy by peppering his stories with nuances but I had been part of a working group all of my life and like many, had taken the aspect for granted.

            I guess learning to care for something as frail as Tulsi, as lame as it seems, created movement around me and that's what life is all about. Sometimes, all we have that really makes us feel alive is caring for others and no matter how much we crave solitude at times, we weren't meant to be alone. Every step we take adds to our lives somehow and rather than complain how hard it is, maybe we should be joyful that we are included in something bigger than ourselves.

            Radhika did move back to the states eventually but refused to take tulsi back. She didn't like the thought of me being alone, writing at home, with no one to talk to. Tulsi, my friendly burden, was meant to be my companion for life. I would care for her and she would give me a holy medicine and flavor my soup and it would somehow provide us each with comfort. I used to think it was funny that someone would talk to their house plants, but was beginning to understand this dependent relationship. It's just another journey of sorts, two lives interacting and I'm grateful for the company. Someday, perhaps I'll split Tulsi again and give someone a piece of friendly burden. But it will only be entrusted to my kindest, gentlest friends, those who understand the true value of life and our place among others.