It was a cold, gray day. The nursery had only a few customers walking along its overgrown pathways.
I walked by a white-haired man wearing a worn and soiled checked shirt. Was he an employee? Was he homeless? I took a chance and asked him where I might find the salvias.
He lead me to a plant I had somehow missed. It was an aromatic pineapple sage. Lush green foliage, small, scarlet, fluted flowers. I bent over and stuck my nose in its branches and breathed in the scent of what seemed to be Christmas in Hawaii. Kind of a cross of a pineapple and a pine tree.
The smell and the plant were very pleasing – the perfect gift for a friend of mine.
Little did I know that I was to get a gift as well.
As the nurseryman rung up the purchase on a cash register from the 1960s -- punch buttons, mechanical numbers, bells and a spring loaded cash drawer -- I commented that the register had been around about as long as I had.
It sparked a conversation where I learned the following: Raymond, the white-haired nurseryman, had come here in 1965; he had started in the nursery business after graduating Magna Cum Laude from Stanford in Mathematics; he had been on a full academic scholarship; for ten years after he began working as a nurseryman, his colleagues, all with graduate degrees and faculty positions, told him he was crazy, that a brilliant mind like his should be put to good use in research; Raymond also confessed to me that in the more than 40 years he had been a nurseryman, he had never made much money in the business.
“You want to know how to make $2 million?” Raymond asked deadpan. “Start with $4 million and go into the garden business.”
You might imagine that he told me this with a sense of regret or even bitterness – the story of how he made the wrong choice, squandered his intellectual ability and ended up poor.
But that wasn’t the case. He was a man happy in his work and happy with his life.
As he carried my pineapple sage out to my car, he explained that family was very important to him. He told me the story of how he had made a friend by helping create a beautiful garden in the early 1970s. That friend, in turn, introduced Raymond and his family to a wealthy man. The wealthy benefactor liked Raymond and his family and gave him an interest-only loan so he could buy a unit.
That started Raymond off on a real estate investment career that enabled him to provide homes for two of his three children. (The other lives in Argentina, and Raymond also helped his son buy a home there.)
Raymond smiled at me, bemused at how things had played out. “So here I am part of the landed gentry. And why?”
He didn’t answer the question, but just spread out his arms wide — as if to suggest that everything had contributed to it. Including his career as a nurseryman.
Then he spoke again.
“Follow your heart,” he said. “Life will take care of you.”
With the trunk of my Corolla open and the plant on the ground waiting to be loaded, we stood and talked for half an hour. The temperature was too cool for my shirt-sleeves, and the light was fading fast, but we talked on.
Here are some of the things he said:
- He treasured his wife because she noticed things in himself he didn’t see. He told the story about the time he couldn’t make a decision. She turned to him and said, “You have a good intuition even if you are unaware of it. Use it.” She told him he had been praised for his brain and his rational powers, but his intuition was often more useful and wiser than any of his logical or rational abilities.
- He said the nicest compliment he ever received was when a friend introduced him to her sons as a “loving man.” Raymond’s eyes grew moist as he told this story – as I imagine they did when the incident took place. It struck me that being recognized for the love we carry is a powerful good.
- Raymond always tries to start his day by being aware. The plants help with that. They are always telling him something, he says.
- Every day, Raymond and his wife read to each other in bed. Essays, fiction, poetry, you name it. They both read aloud and then discuss what has been read. Sometimes they go back and re-read something they have read together years ago.
- Then Raymond gave me an extraordinary piece of advice: Always carry an interesting plant when attending a party. He explained that he normally felt ill-at-ease when he attended a social gathering. So at one particular party some decades ago, he took a variegated kale plant under his arm. It was a strange sight -- a purple, frilly-leafed cabbage-like thing. As he walked into the party, he saw some “young turk” attorneys sizing everyone up – including him and his wife. Looking the women up and down. Very superior. Or so they thought. He could see the attorneys start to smirk at him and the purple thing under his arm. But just at that moment, three young beauties flocked across the room to ask about the plant. They stayed and talked for some time. Raymond glanced up to see the attorneys looking dis-believing as the guy with the weird plant became the life of the party. To Raymond, it was simple. He had just brought something that connected him to where he felt comfortable and authentic. It was a way to let himself be himself. What he found was that people were interested in that, too.
This holiday season, I wanted to share my conversation with Raymond with you.
This story is my interesting plant.
Love to everyone.
~~~~~~~~~~~
I wrote this for my family for Christmas 10 years ago. Where the nursery once stood, there are now condos and a bar. I never saw Raymond again. But his wisdom stays with me like sunshine for the soul. Thank you, Raymond, wherever you are. Blessings to you.
Footnote: The nursery was named Turk Hessulland and it served people in Montecito, California for more than 40 years.