Some days I can be very clumsy. Not always, but sometimes it seems like I have two left hands. Sometimes, I have a feeling like my fists open on their own and I drop things, or my hand twitches and I knock down things. It has been like this my whole life, but since I had Covid, the situation with my left shoulder worsened my clumsiness. This is why I’m always extra careful while I’m doing something, double-checking where I’ve left things, moving them further away from the table and shelve edges. Sometimes my behavior borders with OCD, but this way I’m certain I won’t break anything. It might seem silly, but this way I prevent damaging lots of things. Also, due to my behavior, we had no damage at home during the last year’s earthquake. All of the decorations, books, and jars moved to the edge of the shelves but nothing broke. 

Still, even though I’m careful, sometimes I’m just unable to prevent the clumsy errors. One of the errors happened a few weeks ago. Last year I bought a small Maranta plant. The baby Maranta was nicely growing until one a couple of weeks ago, I accidentally broke the only branch off while I was wiping a window. I knocked the plant with my elbow and the branch broke in half.

There was nothing more to do than to cut down the broken branch, stick it in the soil, and hope for the best. I’ve cut the branch in half to have better luck with growing roots and left it like that. A few weeks later I noticed that not only did the broken branch root down but also the plant started growing another completely new branch with huge leaves. In a couple of days, my plant looked like nothing happened to it, and now I had even more branches in the pot. Also, the broken branch started letting out new leaves, and I’m sure that in a couple of weeks I’ll have one more big branch. 

Honestly, I didn’t expect this situation to turn out this good, I was always told that Maranta was a very delicate plant that is hard to look after, but now after this, I’m more than happy to have it. It’s practically indestructible. 

Another clumsy situation that turned out really good happened last autumn, while I was working in the yard. While I was watering my neighbor’s plants, I accidentally kicked big Epiphyllum with a watering can breaking a big leaf off the cactus. I decided to take this leaf and stick it in the soil, hoping that maybe it will root down. I left it in the basement during the winter, and this week while I was watering the plants, I decided to check the broken leaf.

Indeed, the leaf grew new roots and now I had a new plant in my collection. The leaf is very long, so I had to transplant it to a bigger pot, and I’ve moved the plant to the house. Now I’m thinking about cutting the top of the leaf again to try and root it next to the rooted leaf.  Hopefully it will continue growing

So even though my clumsiness is a result of many broken things, sometimes it’s actually a good thing. At least it brings me new plants and saves me from earthquake damage. 😂