Renée mentioned recently that this album is 30 years old, and that made me realize I have been jamming to this song since kindergarten.

It’s getting to the point that this is depressing.

The summer before my senior year in college was 14 years ago.

Fourteen years ago, I was in that sweltering living room, wondering where I’d be after graduation.

I bought myself a plant in a tiny pot earlier that day. This was Cecil a few days ago.

My little teenager.

I hadn’t heard of Facebook when this blog started, because it was just a few months old. Twitter wasn’t a thing. Nor was the iPhone. I was not quite 21.

Cecil went through a lot. I had no idea how to take care of a plant. There was a cluster of palms in that tiny pot. Two survived. These two nearly died several times in the early years. They started leaning in 2007 when I didn’t account for a balled-up article of clothing unfurling. But fronds no longer are falling as fast as the new ones come in. There’s been no leaf burn recently. Cecil’s finally in a window facing toward the south and west.

Cecil has been through a lot, but Cecil survived and is thriving.

Cecil is a metaphor.