Narcissus and Echo
For the last few years the appearance of the first Narcissus pseudonarcissus in my garden has set my mind to thinking about the role of social media in my life. The stories of Narcissus and Echo seems a relevant modern parable. For those unfamiliar with the story, Narcissus is a young, handsome, arrogant boy who spurns the affections of everyone around him. Discovering his own reflection in a pool of water he is transfixed. Love struck and unable to tear himself away he wastes and pales slowly into a hanging drooping daffodil. Narcissus pseudonarcissus in particular brings this story to mind with its’ pale, slightly melancholy flowers hanging down. Meanwhile, Echo is madly in love with Narcissus (who rejects her) and follows him around forlornly, gazing at him secretly from afar. Consumed by love sickness she fades, incorporeal, and is left as a disembodied voice, without agency or originality, only able to repeat (or retweet) what he says.
Since getting onto ‘the gram’ in earnest, I’ve been struck each spring by how fittingly these two figures align with elements of our relationship with social media. In both cases, these young people were taken out of the corporeal, vital, creative reality of life and drawn instead into a fantasy that cannot be realised. I suspect that many of us end up channelling a little of both of these characters when we gaze into the bottomless waters of our phones. I certainly do.
Inevitably there is a part of me that takes validation from seeing my work reflected back at me in kind comments, interactions and questions from followers. I don’t mean that I, like Narcissus, think this is a reflection of perfection: my garden is painfully flawed, and I get anxious sharing it at times. Where Narcissus sought his reflection out of arrogance, I think many influencers do so out of insecurity. Having left a job in which public validation was taken to an extreme it is perhaps inevitable that for a few years I will instinctively look to others when trying to work out if I’m doing something right. I regularly scrutinise my motivations for sharing my garden, and in the end, I have good, practical and worthwhile reasons to do so. I learn from other, much better gardeners, it is useful for understanding what problems people face at home and ask me about, and I feel strongly about people’s relationship with plants and have set myself the challenge of improving it in some small way. If occasionally I find my head leaning over the pool, my heart sinking at a post flopping or swelling as a post does well, I try to catch myself and come back to reality. I’m not sure all influencers are as aware of these dangers, and in more successful accounts I feel I can see the wasting, fading, as they lean closer and closer in, mesmerised by their own virality.
I resonate far more with Echo. It is possible to while away hours, pouring over the creations of others. Gazing longingly at mature gardens, or gardens in different climates, on different soils. Gardens without small children and ground elder and exhaustion. Gardens without me and my mistakes and failings but made with confidence, experience (and often a much larger budget). I try at least to be open in my appreciation, always liking and commenting rather than admiring furtively from the bushes as Echo did. Still I wonder if one could waste away, longing for what one cannot have, echoing the brilliance of others rather than thinking, trying, failing, learning and gardening for oneself.
In both these cases, the irony is that time spent on social media (either sharing our own beautiful gardens to see them reflected back, or ogling the beauty of others) drags us further away from the doing of the thing itself. Instead of creating for their own pleasure, regardless of what people might think of it, so many gardeners (I think particularly those starting out) reframe the experience around either emulating other gardens they’ve admired or creating a garden that will be approved of and reflected back positively. Of course I’m overstating it, and there are those that keep their even keel, garden for themselves, sharing their creation without caring how it is received. Instagram is also an incredible force for good: a source of inspiration and of connection, putting me in touch with kindred spirits I wouldn’t otherwise have met. It can be rather lonely being the only person that sees or cares about what one is creating and whilst my daughter enjoys picking what I plant, beyond that I find Instagram the best way to share what I love with people that are interested.
Last year I resolved to keep the Narcissus close to my heart as a reminder of the importance of action over introspection, creation over admiration. Whilst daffodils were in bloom in my garden I managed to keep my phone in my pocket and out of my hand in daylight hours. I will try my best to do the same this year. Luckily there is a long window of Narcissi ahead of me so I should get a lot done. After the first Narcissus pseudonarcissus the next to follow here are the cheap and cheerfuls which I have planted, ‘Tete a Tete’ and ‘Tete Bouclee’. Both of these are just breaking open now. Someone visiting recently looked at ‘Tete Bouclee’ and described them as ‘utterly ghastly’ which I was rather pleased with.
The previous owner here planted daffodils with abandon in the most joyous, rambunctious chaos, and the daffodils’ own promiscuous tendencies have filled out and blurred the boundaries between them all. It’s a merry riot that will take me from this week right through into April. I don’t have a clue what they all are but I enjoy them for the smile they put on my children’s faces.
For me it is the wan, down turned faces that draw me in. I’ve planted large numbers of ‘Snipe’ which I hope to see bloom for the first time in March, alongside the pale ‘Thalia’ which are now in their third year. When the last Pheasant’s Eye daffodils fade, weeks and weeks from now, I will have less of a visual reminder of the perils of validation seeking and wanting what one cannot have, but I will try to keep my head up, away from the black mirror, and to enjoy the muddy reality of living.
