The Day I Planted Silence: Growing Ammi Majus Without Instructions
No one told me how to plant it. There were no diagrams, no promises, no “easy steps.”
There were only seeds—tiny, dry, nearly invisible.
They arrived in a paper envelope that smelled like dust and possibility.
I didn’t know then that I was planting stillness.
I looked for a spot where the light hesitates
Not too much sun. Not too little.
Somewhere in between—where shadows dance but don’t stay.
I chose a patch near the back fence.
It wasn’t special, but the wind passed through it gently. That felt enough.
I loosened the soil with my hands.
No tools. Just fingers.
There were no rules to follow—just an instinct to disturb the ground a little.
I mixed in compost that had forgotten what it used to be.
Then, I let the seeds fall—not planted, not pushed.
Just placed.
Like leaving a thought behind and walking away from it.
They didn’t come quickly
For a long time, nothing happened.
I’d check every few days—sometimes with hope, sometimes with annoyance.
But the soil stayed silent.
Then, one morning, I noticed a green thread, barely visible, rising between the old leaves.
And then another. And another.
None of them asked for anything extravagant.
Only water when the ground turned dry.
Only space when they began to crowd each other.
Only attention—not all the time, but enough to remember they were alive.
They grew like they were remembering something
Tall. Slender. Quiet.
The flowers came slowly, like breath forming in cold air—delicate, white, and strangely familiar.
They didn’t shout. They didn’t try to be seen.
They just appeared, and in doing so, they changed the way the garden felt.
And then, one day, they were gone
Not all at once.
Some fell. Some dried.
Some turned to seed without asking for notice.
I didn’t clear them. I didn’t trim them back.
I left them as they were—standing quietly, like stories that didn’t need an ending.
I didn’t grow a flower. I grew time.
Now, every year, something returns in that same patch.
I never know if it’s the same plant or a memory of it.
But every time it happens, I’m reminded:
Not everything needs a plan.
Not everything needs steps.
Some things just need to be offered a place.
And they’ll do the rest.
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