I cradled the tree in its pot for a coworker over Zoom. It’s just like you, she said.

I showed her the swan-necked watering can that held no more than a pint. Don’t overwater it, the lady at the garden store said. 

My coworker didn’t know that the lush, green slope reminded me of the backyard of the house I grew up in, when my legs were so small it took all my breath to run its length past the apple trees to the woods at the other end. How I’d climb up with my siblings to eat apples that swirled green and red. You’ll get sick to your stomach, my dad said. 

The bonsai tree was bright and prickly. Juniperus communis: juniper. Its branches arced over the pot and brushed the moss and stones below in a graceful bow. Green and brown on gray and orange: the colors of 70’s office buildings, like where my dentist was as a child, or where I had started seeing a therapist. They really gave you a raw deal, he used to say.

The moss is what I loved. Stems crisscrossing and hugging as if laying out a pine needle floor. It sprawled over the pot and reached up to embrace the tree trunk. Pleurozium schreberi: sheet moss. It covers forests from Greenland to New Mexico. A website claimed that it helps preserve nutrients and protect tree roots in case of overwatering. Don’t overwater it, the lady at the garden store said.

My first bonsai didn’t have moss. I bought it with the lunch money my parents had given me for a field trip to Quincy Market when I was in seventh grade. Its rocks were jagged, imposing. The tree grew over tranquil desolation. I pictured myself in miniature, walking the dirt along the pot’s edge with a Zen Koan settling in my mind. I can hardly recall it now: the one where a teacher tells a prospective student he can’t learn anything until he’s emptied his cup of tea. 

The browning started at the outer edges. Then it crept inwards. I figured I wasn’t watering it enough. Was that possible? Don’t overwater it, the lady at the garden store said. 

I bought a spritz bottle and misted every three days. Once a week, I used the swan-necked watering can. The moss turned beige and then bleach yellow. I checked a book on bonsai care. Tap water can cause browning. I bought a gallon jug of filtered water and poured it into the pint-size can. The moss shrank from the side of the pot, curling into itself as if clutching a wound. Can I water it with you? my six-year-old asked.

Some stems died alone, others in clumps. Some mornings I’d discover that entire patches had broken off in an act of doomed secession. Each loss a failure: silence from a hiring committee, rejection from a conference, criticism from my thesis advisor. I started spacing out while reading your chapter, he said. They really gave you a raw deal, the therapist would say.

Was there enough sunlight? Too much? I placed it on the side table next to the microwave. Another clump shriveled away. I pushed toys off a shelf in the sunroom and sat it there. The soil around the edges cracked and dried. I moved it to the center of the dining room table. I’d see it whenever my eyes strayed from my laptop during work. The yellows and browns were a blight, an error, a failed sentence, my blood pressure when I went in for a COVID test. Have you been diagnosed with hypertension? the nurse asked. I hadn’t. I’d been avoiding doctors for years. I already knew what they would say. I’d bought bigger clothes once, and then again. I didn’t need to quantify breathless trips up staircases and furtive glances in mirrors. I didn’t control my schedule; I was on company time. After lunch, I’d have to get through hours of meetings, finish budgets, complete at least 10 items on my to-do list or fall behind. I needed a full meal to get through the afternoon, then a snack, and then another. You’ll get sick to your stomach, my dad said.

The moss is supposed to be the easy part! a friend said, laughing. I had asked him for help during one of my six-year-old’s playdates. I called my mom. She brought moss from her backyard the next time she visited. Leucobryum glaucum: pincushion moss. It grows in forests, it pushes up through cracks in sidewalks and roadsides, it can thrive in wet or dry conditions, I couldn’t kill it so long as it would graft onto the soil in the pot. I looked up how to encourage moss growth. Use toothpicks as tent stakes and cover the area in plastic wrap, leaving a hole for air to come in. Spray liberally. Can I water it with you? my six-year-old asked.

The leaves on the juniper tree began to wither. They bleached and turned yellow, like the moss, then fell off. Can I just throw it away? my wife asked. 

I snipped off dead leaves and branches and kept spritzing. Sometimes I’d miss and water droplets would form a cough pattern on the table. It’s winter, I thought. It’s not going to do well when it’s so cold and dry. Maybe I could delay its death for a few months, until April when the rain-filled air could heal it. Maybe it needed only a new season to begin thriving. If only there were time, if it weren’t so broken, if it hadn’t missed its chance at life but could burst out of its pot and scatter kaleidoscopic growth across the table.

OK, I said. Then I made a cup of tea.

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Header photograph and artwork by Jordan Keller-Wilson