How much water did it take? Not as much as I had, I guess. Was it the water? I don't think it was the water. I mean, it was fine for, like, two years. Now it's just not. It seems like it should be withered. It's not withered. Just not alive.

Growing a tree in the desert is, well, like arguing politics on Facebook. You keep pouring and watering and fertilizing and nurturing, but you get dust. Two years later you're left thinking, "Where exactly did all that water go?" Why did I spend 8 minutes of every Sunday morning spraying a hose at the precariously drooping trunk? 8 minutes times what? My math has dried up, too.

Well, I got that tree growing. That water guzzling, time snatching, life sucking willow. I was proud, too. The boy from Brooklyn, where the only thing I saw growing was mold and maybe some weed through the cracks in the kitchen tile; that boy had planted a tree and it grew! Mighty proud of my willow, I was. That backstabbing disappointing child. Looks like a little leak down the irigation line. That would do it. One week. ONE WEEK without the right amount of water and that dead stick is as dry as an aged merlot.

Yet I shall rise again. I shall learn from my mistakes. I shall grow something that will not die. I'll do it on an app.