Growing New Roots

Strawberry plants, in addition to producing yummy berries (when they're in the mood, anyway), produce something else: shoots with new plants on them.

So a few weeks ago, I stuck one of the shoots into a smaller plant pot filled with dirt nearby, without disconnecting it from the mother plant. It worked--kinda. The problem is, I know better. Plants don't work like that.

Plants are interested in their own survival, of course, but they're also super-into the survival of their species. When their lives are threatened, they do their best to reproduce (which is why when you cut a flower, it will look great for days--it's trying to attract pollinators and ensure the next generation of flowers), and if reproduction isn't possible, they'll start growing roots.

How I turned one strawberry plant into three.

How do you get a plant to grow roots, then? Freak it out by threatening its life. When I finally cut the connecting shoot, the new plant finally started to thrive instead of just existing. It produced its own shoot, which I also potted, and now I have three strawberry plants in various stages of growth, all going strong.

Humans don't work like that, either. I've tried. I've tried living in one spot while trying to put roots into another one. It hasn't worked. Maybe I've been unlucky, maybe I've been unimpressive in interviews, or maybe I'm just trying to do something that was never going to work.

So a few weeks back, I shifted my focus. Instead of just looking at jobs, I started looking at temporary places to live. Places I could land for a few weeks while I find something more permanent. Places to be so I can actually be a Cincinnati resident, instead of this in-between I've been doing.

Tomorrow, some of my belongings will roll down the road with me to Cincinnati. I have a room secured. I have jobs that I'm waiting to hear back from. I have Plans B, C, and D if I don't hear back right away. But whatever plan I end up going with for now, it's time to move on instead of sitting still.

I have new roots that are aching to grow.