I didn't come to this through a degree. I came to it through grief. After my grandfather died I inherited his small workshop, his cracked ceramic pots, and one juniper bonsai he'd been training for forty-one years. I almost killed it the first week. I learned how to keep it alive over the next two.
What I figured out is that the plants weren't the point. The point was the patience they pulled out of me. Bonsai, succulents, terrariums — the whole quiet world of small living things — they teach you to slow down, to notice, to do one thing well. In a culture that sells speed, that's almost rebellious.
