Cultivating Joy as a Boring Plant Lady

AYANA (00:00)
Y'all, I have a lot of plants. A lot. I don't know how it got to this. I think maybe whenever I was stressed out or anxious, I would go to like a a hardware, you know, one of those big box stores just to touch something green. And I would buy a plant. Or I'd be just laying around bored and looking at plants online and going, ooh, I want that one and I want that one and I want that one.

That's how I ended up with plants. And thank God plants aren't humans because my gosh, I'd have a nice collection of humans right now. I have indoor ones, outdoor ones, I have big ones, small ones, teeny tiny ones. flowers, flowers, flowers, flowers, flowers, flowers everywhere. I'm looking at flowers right now smashed against my the Big Bay window at my house. And I'm like,

I should go outside and like prop it up. It probably needs a prop. Like I think about these things a lot, what their needs are. because you don't want the thing that you have invested time and attention and care to to suddenly die or suffer because you neglected it because it was just too much or you didn't have the time or

Or you just got bored with it, you know. A neurodivergent person like me gets bored with things easily. But the plant thing is something I've managed to stick with because it's exciting to watch them grow. It's exciting to see new leaves, to see them grow tall. How big are they gonna get? It's exciting when one of them pops out a flower. It's it's exciting when they pop out a new branch.

I mean, it's exciting when they cascade down or they crawl up, you know, a post or something. and they're beautiful. Green, white, pink, orange, purple, red, pink, pink, pink, pink, I'm looking at a burgundy one. I'm looking at I've got a lot of pink ones and an orange one. And my goodness, yellow. It's just wonderful. And they're very resilient. And why am I talking about plants?

Because I've become the boring plant lady.

I've got some explaining to do. Let's get into it.

Hey everybody, welcome back for another episode of Ayana Explains It All, the podcast bridging the gap between current events and human behavior. I am your host, Ayana Fakhir the Black Muslim lady lawyer in Northeast Ohio who has plants and kids and a mortgage. Ayana Explains It All is the podcast bridging the gap between current events and human behavior, as I said, and it is available on multiple streaming platforms.

For your listening pleasure, but especially www.ayana explains it all dot com. That is www dot ayana explains it all dot com. Go to our website. You can find all of the places to stream the podcast, to listen to every episode. You get show notes, you get transcripts, you get references. A lot of references I use in my show. A lot, a lot, a lot. Books.

Journal articles, news articles, things people have said to me. so you can find all of that there. Sources. They call them sources. You know, I'm at that age in my and stage of my life where the words just escape me and I don't give a damn. So I'm doing this different today, differently, excuse me. So the sound might be a little bit different. I am not in my little studio closet, no.

Because there is a soccer match on that I wanted to watch. I'm sorry, football match on that I wanted to watch. And I couldn't record and watch the football at the same time while I'm in the closet recording. So I'm in the living room watching TV as I record this. First time ever, first time ever. But again, go to www.aiana explains it all dot com for all things podcasts. Again, we are available on iHeartRadio.

Apple Podcasts, our flagship Spotify, Good Pods, Amazon Music, and a host of others on and on. Pandora. Do you like Pandora? We're on Pandora. it's been a while since I've recorded, and here's why. I've been out living my life. Just living, living and talking to other people. Talking to other people about things. mostly politics. The politics really heated up there for a while.

Got a lot of primaries coming up in the month of August, and it's gonna get pretty heated, pretty hot. So I've been online on TikTok mostly, doing TikTok live a lot. Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay. What a cesspool that is. So I've been on TikTok. and I I don't do the arguing anymore. I used to argue with people. my god, what was I?

thinking. What's the point arguing with people? About what? Their opinion? Huh? Who cares? Who cares? I I'm only interested in facts. And unless you got some facts, why are you talking to me? Honestly. yeah, so I've been doing that and I've been having conversations with different people, people from all over the country, from Oregon to Maine to Florida to what's that other country at the what's that other

State at the bottom, to Southern California, to Nevada, to Nebraska, to the Dakotas, and of course, Ohio. Love my Ohio peeps. I've been having conversations and trying to figure out why things are going the way that they're going, not just for the country, but for my state and for

My house, my kids, me? Why are things the way that they are? I don't know. There's so much going on, and it's just been hard to kind of narrow things down to figure out exactly what to talk about. There's some changes going on in my life. I have another kid who's going off to college, inshallah. So I will have two kids in college, and I don't I don't know how I manage that. By the grace and mercy of

And kindness and power of God. That is all because I I I have no idea. Single mom, two kids, working full time, and now I will have two kids in college. And I'd love to say I did it all on my own because I'm Wonder Woman, Superwoman, Batwoman, Catwoman. No, I had plenty of assistance from my family, especially when my kids were smaller.

Especially when they were smaller. And as they got older, family support was always there for all the the games and and what is those things that kids do when they play the instruments and the the speeches and the graduations and the parties and the all those things. And so yeah. I'm gonna be a alone for a little bit. I'm gonna be alone. I probably shouldn't say that. I'm gonna be alone in my house.

I'm not an empty nester, no, because I'm pretty sure one of these kids will be back to live with me full-time. And that's fine because the economy sucks. Did you hear? Rent is expensive unless you're making about a hundred thousand dollars a year.

Or thereabouts. You're you're not gonna be able to afford an apartment. I d I'd I know a couple of kids who out of college get a nice job and they're able to afford their own apartment, but I don't know. It's it's not a lot of people who are able to do that. And if you want a one bedroom, you're gonna be paying out the ass, as they say. So I'm I'm keeping my house open for my children.

although one has expressed to me fully and completely that she is leaving and never coming back. She has said to me, probably not coming back to Ohio once I go to college. I'm like, Okay, that's fine. Fine with me. I just don't want you to be homeless, dear. I don't want you to be one of those people who joins a cult who lives out in the woods. And let me tell you, I I've recently been watching this,

This Nature Boy docuseries on YouTube. And if you don't know who Nature Boy is, please do not Google this person because you will go down a rabbit hole and you will also be watching a 43 part docuseries. my gosh. If you heard that zap, that zap is because of the things that like to s to fly around my plants. I have a an electric fly swatter.

And it zaps whenever a fly flies into it, which thank God I have controlled them enough that it's not that often, but it will randomly zap and I'll go, yeah, just caught another fly. anyway, going back to this nature boy thing. And as I'm watching this thing and I'm watching these people become completely entranced, enmeshed with this man, just

completely dazzled and and bewildered by this person, just this one person who calls himself God and he's out in the woods. It starts off with him in, you know, he's a little boy from the ghetto who had a hard life and he ends up in the woods of Nicaragua and Mexico and and he he's you know he would eat watermelon and then go poop out the, you know, the watermelon waste

with the seeds and then, you know, use that to grow more water. That's how he would grow more watermelon. And they're urinating outside and they're sleeping in tents. And then it it it go as it goes along over the years, he ends up becoming some kind of bisexual orgy with men having guy with a sex cult with women as his servants who are sucking his feet.

It's the most bizarre thing. It is bizarre. But what it got me to thinking is that when our kids leave us, we really have no control over them. Some of them end up in cults. Some of them end up in cults. And there's this one father of one of the members of this cult who tried for several years to get his daughter out of this thing. And she would leave and go back and leave and go back and leave and go back and leave.

And I don't know why. I don't know why. Except maybe she's a maniac just like the leader, or maybe she's a codependent because he is a narcissist. how he managed to get all of these people to follow him is beyond me because he was a disgusting maniac. These people just they must have been looking for acceptance and belonging. And you know, children, you never know what they're gonna be. I say children, people under the age of twenty-five. You never know.

what influences are going to catch them and where they're going to end up. You just hope that when you teach them things and you tell them things that they follow the good path that you have laid out for them or that you have, you know, shown them. Some of them end up in cults. And this happens, you know, college years, things get tough, or they're fine trying to find themselves. They might end up homeless.

And it's probably just my anxieties playing with me. But I think about this. I think about wow, I could end up God forbid, that's one of my kids. And I have to try to get a kid out of a cult. I've had to get my children out of some messes. I and I have. I don't think I could do a cult. I think maybe I would just have to let it be. Cause either we're gonna kill that cult leader or you're staying. I don't know.

I d I I honestly, I don't know why one of those people didn't just take some pots and pans to his head and just leave him with a flat face, honestly. I was talking to a friend about this and and we're both watching this and he asked me, you know, what are you getting out of this? And I what I'm getting is that we have to be very careful about who we associate with.

We have to be very careful about the people we hang around, about the people we call friends and family, and and about the influences in our lives. And I drew a parallel between I was talking to another person about this series, and I drew a parallel between Trump supporters and the people who were in this cult. And it was called the the cult is called the carbon nation. Carbon nation.

But people are being lied to every single day. They're being lied to and they're being fed lies and they they really exist in an echo chamber. And so the lies are just circulating around them. The truth is not allowed to enter. It's misinformation and disinformation to the point that people believe whatever it is they're told. Even if what they see around them contradicts what they're being told, they still believe what they're told.

And if you believe what you're told despite new facts or evidence that proves what you're told was wrong, then there's something there's something up with you. There's something up. There's something crazy wacky, wack-a-doodle about you. And you might need some help. And I see this a lot in in the adventures I've had on TikTok in the lives, in the TikTok lives with Trump supporters. They really do believe the the lies that they're fed.

They believe them. They fully, wholeheartedly believe them. You could throw facts at them, statistics. You could throw any kind of information at them, new information, and they'll just completely go, hmm, I don't care. I don't care. That doesn't, that's not what they told me. They, there's always a a they. That's not what they said. That's not what they said on TV.

That's not what Trump said. That's not what Steven Miller said. You could tell them, you know, the the sky is falling. It yeah, the sky is falling. They would go, No, it's not. No, it's not. That's rain. That's that's just rain. It's just rain. And the sky would actually fall on their head and they would look up from the rubble and go, No, no, that's not the sky falling. That's that was just, you know.

a rock, someone threw a rock at my you know, something completely silly. Their responses are always silly. Their responses make no sense. It it and it doesn't make sense for people who are grown and have careers to believe the most ridiculous things and completely become caught up, caught up by these giant personalities. And you wonder how someone can be

someone who you think has common sense or someone who's led a good life, how they can go from how they can completely lose themselves in an ideology. Lose themselves in an ideology. Lose themselves in a particular political party or lose themselves completely in a religious experience. Not a religion, but a religious experience. You wonder how these things happen to people.

And my therapist would always trace it back to childhood. Something happened in your childhood. And it it it could be your parents, it could be neglect from your parents, but it can also be an abuse experience, a neglect experience. It could be something that triggers that or a trauma that happens. but it's always traced back to your early development. And these things sometimes are sitting dormant.

inside of you waiting for someone to come along and pluck it out of you and exploit it. And I think that's what hat what's happening to a lot of these Trump supporters. They're being exploited. their trauma's being exploited, their sensibilities are being exploited, their good nature, if they have a good nature, but their desire to want everything to be good and safe and wholesome is being exploited.

To the point that they truly believe that being cruel and nasty and mean to people will save them and will save the country. And of course, I'm talking about the detention of migrants, undocumented workers. They truly believe that what is happening, what the government is doing to these people, will make the country safe.

And i i it just talking to these people, I I d I don't know. I've I feel like this is what has made me kind of retreat retreat back from everything and just become the boring plant lady because plants are safe. Plants don't say stupid things, they act stupid sometimes, and you don't know why.

it's usually because they have a fungus or a bug attacking them. But it's what has made me become the boring plant lady because it's safe. It's safe here. You know, plants don't talk back, plants don't call you an an a stupid Muslim bitch. Yeah, somebody called me that last week because I corrected them about something, and so they call me a stupid Muslim bitch.

You know, plants don't do that. Plants don't do that. so I've just retreated to becoming the boring plant lady. And I've just I sit around and I I I fluff them and I make sure they are warm enough, have enough humidity, and they aren't that they have enough moisture. I've gotten really good with watering my plants. I've been listening to this lady on TikTok live.

she runs a plant shop called Flourish Plant Care. And one of the things she has suggested is bottom watering, bottom, she calls it butt chugging your plants. And I resisted that at first because everything I've known about plants is you top water. You you s drench them and watch the water come out of the bottom. So now what I do is for a lot of my smaller plants, especially, I will put them in a dish and fill it with filtered water.

And I will just let them soak it all the way up until the top of the plant is moist. And that's that. It takes a couple hours. It takes a couple of hours, but they're pretty good at it. They love it. They seem to love that a lot more than being watered from the top. Watering from the top seems to produce more bugs, more gnats. So I bottom water them as much as possible. It's not,

It's it I guess I could do it with the bigger plants, but a lot of them require the bigger plants require a lot more water than bottom watering could give to them. Like I'm looking at two big plants right now and I'm like, how could I possibly bottom water? I don't know that I could. I don't know that I could. But so yeah, I've become the boring plant lady because it's safe. And my anxiety is.

right now needs something safe. My anxiousness needs something safe. The anxiety is part of the ADHD as well too, but I've I've managed to keep it under control. But sw stress stress is an exacerbator of of mental impairments. Anytime you you could tolerate a little bit of stress. You could tolerate moderate stress even, but heavy stress, a lot of stress, no, no, no, no

It will send you spiraling. And it doesn't matter how much medication you take or how much medication you take.

There you there's really nothing that can control it absent you removing the stress from your life. And one of the ways I've learned to de-stress, obviously, is through therapy, but also being surrounded by things that calm me. And that is plants. Plants calm me. That's why I buy them. That's why I plant them. The outside plants, I planted some seeds recently, some wildflower seeds because I'm trying to attract butterflies and more bees.

And I have a lot of bees in the hydrangea tree at the front of my house. I mean a lot of lot of bees. The bees love it. But I planted some more because I wanted to attract butterflies. I'm obsessed with butterflies, by the way. So I did that and we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens. I'll keep you guys updated.

But I have some other hydrangea and I have some lavender, which smells wonderful. And I have these beautiful calladiums. I mean, just big, beautiful elephant ear size calladiums bulbs that I got from this wonderful shop online. And what else do I have? These annuals, this the coleus. The coleus, my God. Listen, you start out with one or two little coleus plants.

After I don't know, it's been two months, those things are so tall. Those things are so tall. Listen, I love the colias. C-O-L-E-U-S. Yes, you can grow them indoors, but they they like humidity. So, and when I say plants like humidity, I don't mean like 40-50, they like 70-80 humidity.

But the coleus, you grow them outdoors and they grow so tall and they come in a a few different varieties. You can get light green and burgundy, and you can get dark purple, and they're just gorgeous. And they start off as these tiny little things. I'm telling you guys, this is what's so exciting about plants. They start off as these tiny little things. You can even get like little plant tissue cultures, and you can plant them.

And before you know it, you have a gigantic plant. But these coleus, they start off so short and tiny. Then before you know it, you got an you got a a a a six-foot plant. A bunch of them. I planned and I forgot about that. See, I I forgot last year that that's what's happen what happened. And I love them so much that I brought them indoors and I managed to keep the biggest one.

through December and finally I was like, you know what? I just need to let this baby go. I need to let it go. It was it hurt me so bad to let it go. But it was just getting too tall. It was getting too tall. And I I have I don't have a lot of room because of the the plants that live indoors. I don't have a lot of room and it sheds terribly.

It'll shed, it'll drop the bottom leaves as it grows taller. It will drop the bottom leaves. And I I just I I didn't feel like cleaning it up anymore. So I just threw it away. That's the other thing. With plants, if they start stressing you out, if they don't get right, if they don't if they don't, what's the word? Cooperate, you know, you don't have to fight with them. You can just

Toss them back to the earth. I prefer to toss the plants back to the earth versus throwing them away, but throw them away. It's okay. It's okay. But tossing them back to the earth, I will just toss them into my backyard and they'll disintegrate into nothingness. But I don't I don't fight with plants. I don't fight with them. I don't fight with with bugs on plants either. If I sit you outside,

That means that you've been a bad plant. And right now I have four plants outside that have been very bad indoors. So I put them outside. And this I prefer talking about more than I prefer talking about politics or the state of black America or racism or the bad economy.

Or the state of the government or people running for office. I'd rather talk about plants. I could talk about plants for an hour, two hours, three hours. I could talk about my favorite plants. They're they're safe. They make me feel good. I feel, I feel like it fills me with joy. It fills me with joy. You guys remember joy? Not a person, but a feeling and emotion. It fills me with joy.

I know I I I did an episode a couple years ago about finding joy, little, little ways to find joy every day. And looking at my plants brings me immense joy. Just looking at them. Just looking at them. Yeah, because they they have different shapes, different colors. Even for plants that are the same, the stripes are different. the the height's different.

I love how, and I I know I shouldn't do this. I love how when they want water, they lean over and then you give them water, and within a few minutes, within a few minutes, they're back. They've sprung back up. I love seeing that. I love seeing that because that's that's when you know, yeah, all that baby needed was some water. All that baby needed was some water. Mm-hmm. I love to see them, they grow towards a light source.

That's how you know they need more light. They need to be closer to the light source. I love, you know, waking up in the morning and right next to my bed, I kid you not, are 10, I believe it's 10 plants and three cups of water propagated plants. And

The bugs love my plants so much. Right now I'm looking at a lightning bug on my window, on my front window. They love the plants. They love the plants too. They love that Ayana has planted all of these plants that they can pollinate and that they can fly into and and and just eat and be happy. And I love looking at this little lightning bug. That is so cool. Why? Because they're going extinct.

So are the butterflies and so are the the the good bees, the the native bees. All of these things that are that we need to help us continue to to the circle of life, you know, to keep things going, to keep things moving, to keep things flowing. They're being killed by pesticides and and predators and and humans.

And human beings don't understand that and we don't take the time to appreciate it. Everybody wants data centers and concrete. And they want to look at buildings, and nobody wants to look at the sky, and nobody wants to just sit outside and listen to the birds. See the boring plant lady. Just call me the boring plant bee butterfly lady.

That's what I do, that's who I am, and I don't care.

My therapist asked me, y she said, you know, do you you do you do you know that you're boring? And I said, Yes, I do.

Boring to to some people is because I I like doing whatever I want. I don't have a plan when I wake up on the weekends. I'm gonna go to do this and I'm gonna go to this. No, I shower, get dressed, put on some makeup, put on some clothes, you know, put my hijab on, hop in the car, and I just go. And I stop wherever the hell I want to along the way.

And I just drive around sometimes and look at flowers and and look at people and look at trees and look at bodies of water. I'll go for a walk. I'll stop into a shop and get some coffee or a pastry. Or and I'll just I'll be by myself. I just go places. I just go places. Or I'd I'll go to the the store. Go to the hardware store, one of my favorite places, the hardware store, go to the plant store, go to the home goods store, go to the makeup store.

Go to a clothing store. I do whatever I want to do. I do whatever I want. Alhamdulillah that I get to be able to do that. A lot of people don't have that freedom. And I did not always have that freedom. And now that I have it, I'll either do it or I won't. Or I won't. It's very rare that I will lay down on the couch and watch TV. Like right now, I'm watching this.

Soccer match that just ended between Columbus and Cincinnati. And of course, Columbus won. Of course they did. but it's very rare that I and I did that for a whole month. This past month, I watched all the World Cup games. My God, that was the most TV I had watched in months. Because I don't be watching TV. I'm either working or I'm out of the house.

Or I'm doing something on the computer and I don't have time to sit and watch a a TV show. I do a lot of work for the the politics group that I was involved in with the our vote counts when we were doing the town halls, which is kind of wound down, but also

Just doing research for news stories, trying to find news stories that I can post online. I started this thing under the podcast umbrella called background news. It's a play on background noise actually, and and it it means something. Background noise. These are the stories the stories that are playing in the background of the other stories, the other more important flashy stories. These are the ones playing in the background.

flying under the radar is what I call it, the under the radar report. And I'm doing research for that, and I just haven't had the time to sit down. But sports is something you could kind of sit down and and listen to and do other things. If I want to watch Bridgerton, I gotta watch Bridgerton. I can't be typing on the computer and trying to watch Bridgerton at the same time. That's why I haven't finished the most recent season of Bridgerton. That's why, that's why.

I even forgot that I was supposed to go back and watch that. And I didn't. I will forget all about these TV shows. I will start them and forget all about them because I'll get busy with other things. And when springtime ramped up and then summertime ramped up, and I had to go outside and water 50 million plants every single day. I just kind of forgot about the stationary stuff. Y'all do not understand. I will be.

Fully dressed, ready to leave, ready to get into my car and get on the road to go have adventures. And my plants will look at me sad from the heat, begging to be watered. And then I gotta go water them. And that takes, I wanna say, it takes 10 minutes, but that would be a lie. It takes about

45 minutes. Because you can't water these plants just a little bit. No, no, no, no, no, no. Every plant requires at least 30 seconds of watering. And there's the sunpatience and the fuchsia plants and the ground cover plants and the gigantic hosta and the lavender and there's the hydrangea plant in the backyard.

And there's the the little wildflowers. And then you get to the front. And there's all these annuals in the front. There's all these calladiums in the front. And then there's these new perennials that I bought. And then there's the hydrangea tree that has to be watered no less than seven minutes. You have to water this. It requires a lot of water. It requires a lot of water. If I had known that I had to water a damn tree when I bought that before I bought that tree, I would not have bought that tree.

Wouldn't have bought it. Because what do you mean I have to water a tree? Trees store water, right? They store water in their trunk. This is what I have always known about trees. But apparently not every tree does that. Some trees are dumb.

Some trees have to be babied. They have to be babied. My God. If you want the branches on your limelight hydrangea tree to stay erect, you have to water it for at least seven minutes. It takes a lot of water. And then the next day it will demand the exact same effing thing. The watering slows down in about September.

But for two straight months, you're watering that thing every single day with a lot of water. And then you got to water all your annuals, because of course you planted annuals. Those are the pretty ones. The petunias. The petunias have to be watered every day or they will die. They'll die immediately. They will die immediately. And if you water them, they might come back. I've had this happen a few times already this season.

I water them, they spring right back up. But if you don't water them and then you forget to water them again the next day, they are dead and gone and not coming back. You get one good time, one day to forget to water. You might even get five hours. They will wilt, turn down completely and die. My God. So I can't have fun. I can't have fun until the children are fed. I cannot.

Until the children are fed. But I know that when it's fall and the flowers are starting to die because they're not getting enough sun, and it's winter and it's just too cold for them to thrive. I'm gonna be so sad. I'm gonna miss it. I'm gonna miss them because they are what brings me joy to it brings me so much joy to see flowers. I love flowers. I love flowers.

Flowers. If I never have to talk about politics again and just just talk about flowers and gardening for the rest of my life, I would love it. If I never had to write about politics or talk about a politician or talk to a politician or person running for political office again, I wouldn't care. If I could talk about flowers and plants. Please, yes. My God.

Politicians are insufferable. People running for office are insufferable. Political campaigns, voting season is insufferable. Voters are insufferable. People who don't vote are insufferable. People who work in government are insufferable. Y'all are obnoxious. All of you. And you want to know why? Because everybody wants what they want. Nobody wants what's best for everybody. Everybody wants just their pockets to be fat.

Fat and padded. People just want money and they want to spend money. They don't care about anything else. And people will say, I care about the people. I care about the people. It's about the people. I want to work for the people. I want to be there for the people. And then when they get that office, when they get into that office and they sit in that chair, they forget all about the people. They forget all about the people. And it becomes about the lobbyists and the corporations. It becomes about who we can get.

A tax break too so they won't leave the country and go do business in China or Russia or whatever.

Egypt, Vietnam. It's all about keeping the elites happy, not about keeping the people well fed, well clothed, sheltered with clean running water, just the basics. It's all about keeping the machine, the elitists, satisfied and fat and happy. And I'm tired of it. Damn it.

Tired of talking about it, tired of thinking about it, tired of reading about it. I just want to get lost in my plants. I just want to just sit here and look at them. But of course you can't look at them too much. Because if you fuss over your plants too much, you know what's going to happen. They're going to start to die. People who fuss over the plants too much, they usually end up ruining them because they they water them too much. That's what I mean. You water them too much. Not that when you water them, you give them too much water.

No, people water their plants more than they need to. And that is, ladies and gentlemen, the number one killer of houseplants. Watering them too often. Plants should not be watered often. Unless, unless they're one of those silly tropical plants, calatheas, stromanthes. They like to be

Touch damp. They like to be touch damp all the time. They do not like to be dry at all. You got to keep them at 70% humidity at least. Those are Florida plants. Those are four Florida plants. Why they are sold in Ohio is beyond me. Why they are sold above Florida is beyond me. Sell those things in California. Sell them in Florida. Don't sell them.

To Ohioans. Because you know what Ohioans are do? we will neglect them and we will kill them. The the leaves get crispy when they don't have enough humidity. The leaves start to fall off if they don't have enough humidity in water. And the more water you give something, that means they like light. So now you gotta have grow lights and you gotta have light everywhere. My lights, my lights, my electricity. my gosh.

plants. Plants love light. I have a lot of plants that like indirect bright light. Some that like low light. Some. Like the Aglaanemas, which is my favorite plant variety. They can stand low light. Not darkness. Like you could put a snake plant in darkness or bright light and it'll be fine. But they like low light. They don't like to have the light directly on them. They could be slightly away from it.

But they still need light. So I found that bedroom lighting, putting them neck near a window that has good light is fine. But people are like, no, you gotta get grow lights. You have to have grow lights everywhere. Yeah, that's if your house doesn't have sufficient lighting. I have lamps everywhere, everywhere in this house, and my plants benefit from them. probably in the winter I will turn on a grow light.

For some of them, but for the most part, I use the lamps that I bought for the house. A good old sturdy tall stand lamp or a chandelier or a ceiling fan, ceiling fan light, and that's enough. That's enough. Sometimes grow lights are they burn the leaves.

People love to have those grow lights on and then they get they get the leaves too warm. But also the the light will be too close to the leaves. See, this this is what I don't like about plants. This, right, if there was ever a thing I didn't like, it's because they are very sensitive when it comes to light. If you give them too much, they'll brown or turn yellow. If you don't give them enough, they won't stand up straight enough or they'll just die.

If you put it too close to a window, they'll burn. My gosh. Give me a break. Give me a break. Why is this showing me that Columbus is 10th in the Eastern Conference? Columbus used to be a number one team. My God. Ay, ay, ay, yeah, yeah. Tenth? Come on now. Anyway. So yeah, I've become the boring plant lady. and I don't care.

I have philodendrons and I have a Z Z plant. Z Z plant. Now, this is a plant for you. If you are not home a lot, or if you forget to water plants, a Z plant is for you. Why? Because Z Z plants only have to be watered once a month. If that. I have a giant Z plant that I got on clearance at the Lowe's. And I water this plant.

I have watered this plant. I got it in December. I have watered this plant three times. Three times. And I got it in December of last year. And I have watered it three times. It does not like to be watered a lot. It likes bright, indirect light, but it does not like a lot of water at all. At all. That's why I love it. Because the more plants I get, the more I forget to water all of them.

So the Z Z just be in a corner chilling, like, you ain't gotta worry about me, honey. You ain't gotta worry about me. But I have a snake plant, just one, because I repotted the one that I had had for years, and guess what? It died when I repotted it. So I have three pieces of that plant that died left over, and I combined it with another snake plant. I have three.

Prayer plants. not prayer plants, excuse me, 'cause I would never buy one of those fucking things. I meant peace lilies. I have three p peace lilies. One giant one that I'm trying to get to grow flowers.

Two little ones that both have flowers. One is variegated, one is not. Variegated just means that it has white and it's green. It's got white and it's green. I have pothos. Pothos, pothos, pothos. How many pothos do I have? I got that one, snow queen, Hawaiian. I got this one that's a snow queen mixed with something.

And I got another one and an and I got the Brazilian one that has taken over an entire wall that has to be staked around a moss pole. Well, not a moss pole, but it's a pole because apparently it's a climber and I have it trailing and it it even though people say, it doesn't like that, it doesn't like that. Let me tell you, this thing does not care. It looks like that monster.

From Jeepers Creepers. Okay. That's what it looks like against this wall. I have it hanging in front of a window and the leaves are spread against a wall. And it looks like that monster from Jeepers Creepers. So I don't I don't think that it cares that it's trailing and not climbing, but I'm going to to change it to climbing so that the leaves can get bigger.

If you want gigantic leaves on your pothos.

Climb it. Make it climb. Make it go up. Apparently, this is the key to making them grow bigger, is to make them grow up because that is how they look in the wild. And by the wild I mean Florida. Again.

Or Hawaii. Hawaii. Or Thailand. Thailand. Yes. A lot of these plant varieties are from Thailand. Amazing. I have a bunch of agla Nimas, a bunch of different varieties. They come in pink and red. And white? White and green. I have a big white and green one. I got some Diffenbachia. I got what else do I have?

the rubber, the rubber trees, the ficus. Listen, I don't know what this what this thing needs. One of them I had to start over completely. I had to chop it down and start over, and it has regrown so beautifully, so wonderfully. This other one just refuses to grow any flowers at the bottom. All of the flowers are at the top.

And if I do anything to it, the flowers that are at the top are going to die. And I don't want that to happen. So I'm just gonna let it do that. It looks crazy, but it's happy. Who cares? It's happy. People think, you gotta have flowers at the bottom. You gotta have leaves at the bottom. Too many leaves at the top. I know, too many leaves at the top. I know. But it's happy. And I don't wanna I don't wanna throw it away. I love it.

what else do I have? My goodness. Philodendrons. I got the pink Birkin philodendron. I got the white Birkin philodendron. I got the Prince of Orange, and I got this big green and yellow one. And and I got a little Prince of Orange or whatever it's called. I'm sure that's not what it's called, but whatever. And I got something else. I got I'm thinking, I'm thinking, I'm thinking. Hoyas! Hoyas! Love Hoyas.

I love Hoyas, Peperomias. I love those little they're so easy. They're so easy. You know, once you find the perfect place in your home for the plant, and you get the watering schedule and the lighting, you can leave that plant there forever. Forever. And it'll just thrive. It'll just keep growing and giving you lush green, pink, white, orange, whatever.

Pl see plants are like humans. Once we find the perfect spot on the couch and we have our snacks and our beverage, I'm usually drinking some kind of crystal light flavored water. And I usually have some popcorn and I have my spot on the couch. Once I I thri I I could sit there and I'll thrive. No, not rot. No, not couch potatoed. No, I thrive. I'm comfortable. I'm happy. I'm happy.

That's what this is all about, being happy, finding joy. I find joy in things. And I don't care if other people think it's boring or if other people think I should be doing something else. I can do whatever I want. And I do that. Or I'll do nothing at all. That is also doing whatever I want. Ayanna, but don't you want to travel? Don't you want to go to concerts and I've been to concerts.

I've traveled. I've been places. I've seen people. I've done things. I've been to carnivals, amusement parks. I've had a bunch of different jobs. I've met me met people from all over the world. All over the world. Mexico, Canada, England, Spain, Malaysia, South Africa, Tanzania, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, Iran, Iraq.

Palestine.

I've met Russian people. I've met, you know, Australians. My God.

And I I I'm good. I would love more adventures, yes. But if I never have another adventure, just know that I've I've had adventures. If I never get to go another place, just know that I've been places. If I never get to do another thing, just know that I've done a lot of things. Alhamdulillah. Sometimes you just want to sit down. Sometimes you just want to sit down and just be, and that's okay.

The beauty, the beauty. The wonderful thing about that is that it is your choice. It's your choice. Find joy in something. Even if it's a little something. It doesn't have to be a plant. It could be a card game you like to play. Be a video game you like to play. Don't let it consume you. You know, get up and go do some other things. You think I just sit around here and stare at plants all day? No, I just told you that I get in my car and go. You can't just be

Let one thing consume you. Enjoy it a little bit, then go do something else. Enjoy it a little bit, pray. I have to pray five times a day. I can't sit here and stare at plants and and pray. No, I gotta pray. Gotta do something else. I gotta eat. I eat. I had cheesy breadsticks for dinner, unfortunately. I'm gonna pay for that.

But yeah, do what you want. Do what makes you happy. Please find something that makes you happy. Find something that makes you happy and let it be what makes you happy, what pleases you. Not about what is pleasing to other people. Don't worry about other people and what they think. Worry about what you think, how you feel. But please do go get some sun on your face. Go look at some flowers. Go look at the outdoors, smell the outdoors.

Yes, even if you live in Cleveland where it smells like cigarettes and piss. I'm kidding. I am kidding. I'm so kidding. I'm kidding.

It does have a bit of a smell. But anyway. I live near Cleveland, by the way. So I can say that. I can say that. But yeah, find joy. Find find joy. And don't let anybody stop you from finding your joy, my darlings. Yeah. So in closing.

This has been Ayana Explains It All, brought to you by Facts, Figures, and Enlightenment. Take care.