things that grow in the desert

a few months into the pandemic, edi begins to call me every week on friday afternoon. she lives in a complex that was closed to outside visitors for the entire year, her world made tight and compact, and everyone there facing age and its complex discomforts, physical and emotional. our calls also become my own psychological lifeline in a year far from my beloved collaborators, communities, the movements of the cities i love. we talk about desert plants, we talk about petroglyphs, we mourn the ways we are broken from our families. two empaths, we advise each other to ask for care, to allow ourselves to be helped, even as we know we won’t follow these directives. of all the photographs i send edi of the cacti and roses, the crepe myrtles and pink oleander, irises, fig trees, pecans, and soft green apricots, the lantana and salvia and succulents, this is the plant she likes best.