Lithops (Living Stones) - Patience
You've been coming back every few days. Theo has noticed. Today when you walk in he's standing by the door like he was waiting, arms folded, a look on his face that's half amusement, half concern.
"You keep checking," he says.
You don't know what he means. Or you do, but you don't want to admit it. Something in your life isn't moving fast enough. You keep poking at it, refreshing it, watching for signs.
He leads you to the far end of the succulent wing, past the echeverias and the sedums, past the hanging string-of-pearls, to a bottom shelf near the floor. You have to crouch to see it. A shallow clay dish filled with what appears to be smooth pebbles -- grey, brown, some with faint green or purple tints, flat-topped and round. Gravel, you think.
"Those are alive," Theo says.
You look closer. The pebbles have a faint slit across their tops. Some have subtle markings, almost like fingerprints, patterned into their surfaces. They're plants. Each one is a pair of thick, fused leaves masquerading as a stone.
"Lithops," he says. "Living stones. From the Namibian desert. They evolved to look like the ground so nothing would eat them. And they grow --" he pauses, searching for the word "-- almost not at all."
He picks one up. It's the size of a large marble. Heavy for its size.
"I've had this tray for six years," Theo says. "Six years. You know what's changed?" He waits. "Three of them split once and produced a new pair of leaves. That's it. That's six years of growth. If you watched this tray every single day, you would see nothing. Absolutely nothing. You'd think they were dead. You'd think you were doing something wrong."
He sets the lithops back in its place in the gravel, where it disappears again, indistinguishable from the stones around it.
"But then one morning you come in and there's a flower. A bright yellow flower bigger than the entire plant, pushing up from that slit, and it's the most ridiculous, joyful thing you've ever seen. And you realize it was working the whole time. You just couldn't see it."
He stands, knees cracking.
"Stop checking," Theo says. "Growth happens when you're not watching."
Lithops (Living Stones) - Patience
Fior Fiore Plant Shop
$0.99
Stop checking. Growth happens when you're not watching.