Making Conversation

What do you want to be when you grow up? That is a standard question older people feel obliged to ask the young, or so it was when I was younger and I suspect the question is still out there. Usually, at the time you are asked this question you are much too young to know how a person goes about becoming anything. Therefore the whole range of possibilities is theoretically open to you. You could become an astronaut, a doctor, a basketball player, a pop-singing cowgirl truck driver, or anything else in the world that might be of interest to you at the time you are asked. The older person who asks the question is only making conversation, trying to find out a little bit about you and what you are interested in. You say you want to become a scientist because you just watched a show that had a cool scientist character in it, and the adult who asked the question raises his or her eyebrows and says, “Oh — a scientist! Well, that's a very important job. You have to be pretty smart to be a scientist, so you better work hard in school!”

The same basic question gets asked again some years later, in slightly different terms and more seriously this time. Maybe the question comes from your college advisor, hoping to guide you in your journey toward higher education, or maybe it comes from your parents, who are wondering if you have given any serious thought to your future. In our culture, rightly or wrongly, it is generally expected that by the time you are in your late teens or early twenties you should have some inkling of what you intend to do with your life. Once you make this decision you are supposed to start moving with purpose toward whatever it is, climbing however many steps it takes to ascend to your goal. Every so often you read about an accomplished person who says they always knew what they wanted to become, even as a little kid. The famous pianist began taking lessons at the age of four and the fashion designer started out by making outfits for dolls. I don't think it happens that way very often, though. I think many people find their way to their life's work by more roundabout means, through convenience or coincidence, or by accident.

It might be wrong to assume that what a person does for a living is how they self-identify. You have perhaps heard someone say something like: "I'm an accountant, but what I'm really passionate about is skiing!" It is much easier to find work as an accountant than it is to make a living as a professional skier, and a person has to pay the bills so they do what they need to in order to make money. Then they do the thing they really love as a hobby when time allows. In a better world everyone would make a living pursuing the activity that brings them the most joy and fulfillment. This is a fantasy, however, because if society worked like that a great many necessary jobs would find no takers. It is tempting to give some examples of employment that fall into this category, but doing so could only lead to trouble. When you are an adult and someone making conversation asks what you do (the later-in-life companion question to asking a child what they want to be when they grow up), they are tacitly asking what you do for a living. Once that information is provided and discussed you can go on to talk about whatever it is you like to do when you are not at work.

When people ask me what I do, I tell them I work at The North Carolina Arboretum. If they are interested enough to ask exactly what I do at the Arboretum, I tell them I'm a horticulturist. That answer is usually specific enough to satisfy curiosity and then the conversation moves on, typically by means of the other person talking about how much they like the Arboretum. Sometimes, however, hiding behind the horticulturist answer doesn't work. Sometimes the questioner will press a little further and ask, Oh? What kind of plants do you grow? When this happens there is no more room to dodge the issue and I must own up to being the person who takes care of the bonsai. Happily the response to this information is most often favorable. People who know the Arboretum love the little trees!

Why shy away from providing a more forthright answer in the first place? In large part, I avoid mentioning bonsai because too often it sends the conversation in a direction I do not enjoy going. Doing bonsai for a living is unique enough to stir people's interest, which is usually expressed by asking more questions: How old are some of those trees? Aren't those things worth a lot of money? How did you get started in that? Aren't you afraid you'll kill them? Often the mention of bonsai will prompt other people to share their recollections about travels to Japan, or living in Japan, or reflections on what a fascinating culture Japan has. Sometimes letting on that I do bonsai professionally elicits poor jokes about being a zen master or torturing trees. I get plenty of all these different sorts of interactions when dealing with visitors in the bonsai garden, and I engage with it then because that is part of my job. When I'm not at work I'd just as soon talk about something else.

It is not difficult to imagine someone reading that last paragraph and concluding that I must not like my job very much. That conclusion would be wrong. I love the work I do and there is no other job at the Arboretum I would rather have. The reluctance I feel to talk about it has more to do with bonsai itself — or more precisely, how bonsai is generally perceived. I would not have much interest in bonsai if bonsai was nothing more than what most people seem to think it is. In fact, before becoming involved with it at the Arboretum I had about as much knowledge of bonsai as most people do, and I did not find any appeal in the idea of stunting trees to turn them into exotic artifacts. That was my starting point on the path to becoming a bonsai curator.

Over the course of a few years that somehow turned into a few decades, I came to discover in bonsai so much more than most people could ever imagine it to encompass. There is surprising depth to it. Bonsai contains layers of meaning that are not readily apparent when the little trees are appreciated simply for the novel surface impression they present. The art of bonsai is full of potential utility that few would guess at when regarding it in only a casual way. All of that is worth communicating, but not necessarily for the sake of making conversation when meeting people in social situations.

The Curator's Journal is the right vehicle for sharing what I've learned about bonsai with others who might genuinely care to know.