dream

I'm doing regular aquarium maintenance, putting equipment away when suddenly I realize I'm in a different house and I walk into another room, and there's four more fish tanks I forgot I had. The fish all look distressed, thin, ragged. Chagrined and desperate, I work feverishly to change all their water and improve the upkeep. Not sure they will all make it, but hopeful again I finish up the work and turn to the double glass doors that lead out to a broad backyard- again, new and different from what I'd expected to see. Lots of interesting plants but most impressive are several stout ponytail palms growing near the door, their greenery spreading several feet above my head. I have a few young ones in pots inside the house, but these are planted straight outdoors and I wonder that they survive the winters here. I puzzled over it- they must, or they wouldn't be here, but how is that possible? I pat their thick trunks and look up at foliage, wondering, when a sometimes-friend walks over to chat and she laughs thinking me silly for troubling my head over a plant that's obviously doing fine by itself. To her plants are a thing usually ignored- background stuff, you water it sometimes, if it dies you throw it away and get a new one. No big deal. But I still wonder at them, and concern myself greatly.