A gift I cannot send.

Kind thoughts

I have a spider plant called Cyril.

Every year, Cyril grows long flowering stems, and from these sprout little spiderettes. Yes, that is what they are called. I have wanted to try growing one of these, just for fun, for ages. A few weeks ago, I finally kicked myself to chuck some compost into a spare pot, and without a clue about what I was doing, planted one of them.

He seems quite happy now, so dear readers, meet Baby Cyril.

This, of course, raises the question of what to do with another spider plant, and the thing anybody would want to do with a spider plant they have grown and nurtured is to give it to somebody. The problem is, there is only one person who would truly appreciate Baby Cyril, and that person is in America. I am in the northeast of England. There is no way I can (legally) get this plant to America. I simply do not have the resources to get him there alive, and even if I did, Trump would probably napalm him, just out of spite.

Why is the old fool wittering on about a bloody spider plant, you might reasonably ask?

The reason is simple. The person who would really be cheered up to have Baby Cyril arrive on her doorstep is somebody from the tiny but cheerful Substack community of writers, and she has been a bit down lately, disillusioned with the aggressive, commercial, and competitive aspects of Substack. She has stopped writing because of the lack of appreciation for good writing, and the trampling to death of the tiny number of creatives by the vast hordes of bounty hunters who have no dreams to chase, merely more subscribers they want to capture.

I know that to have Baby Cyril arrive would bring joy to somebody, a kind thought to cheer somebody in need of cheer. The person I refer to is Marissa Purdum, and one of the reasons Baby Cyril would bring her a little bit of sunshine is because a few months ago, she mentioned Cyril in her Ten Hate Poems.

10 Poems I Hate About You

Marissa has never been one to write often, compelled to feed content into the churn, but when she does write, it is thoughtful, and often beautiful. We need more writers like Marissa on Substack, and fewer who merely feed the churn, because well-thought occasional writing is so much better to read than the vast torrent of writing to order that chokes this platform and makes it so hard to find the gems that are worth finding.

So I will keep Baby Cyril here, and every time I see him, water him, and make sure he is happy, I will send a kind thought across the miles, and I would like to think that perhaps one or two of those kind thoughts will land and bring a smile.

I will not put a subscribe button at the end of this one; somehow, it does not seem appropriate. Instead, please think a kind thought about somebody who might need one, because sometimes, a kind thought is all you can send.

Thank you for reading.