She’s cleaning out her office, sorting through papers accumulated at Tuesday provider meetings: handouts on how to order intravenous iron, avoid high risk medications in the elderly, updates on the latest USPSTF recommendations.

Her office plants, bought in between Child #1 and Child #2, have suffered. Although assured these were the hardiest of greenery when she chose them from the local nursery, they couldn’t survive two long maternity leaves, an owner who returned to work sleep deprived, plant care at the bottom of a very long list of responsibilities. The soil dried out, even the succulents wilted.

Her youngest now well into toddlerhood, spring emerging from the dark hibernation of winter, she begins to replant, regrow, cultivate, cull.

Ten years into practice, she tosses lecture notes from a decade prior. She updates the snapshots lining the wall behind her desk: her eldest in a tutu, her son being tossed into the air, the baby’s cherub smile gleaming on a sandy beach.

She purchases new plants, still hardy but more hopeful for a prolonged existence. She re-pots them on her back deck, digging into the dry soil with her bare hands, gently shaking the roots. She nestles them into ceramic pots, settles the loose dirt around coarse stems.

It feels satisfying, grime under her nails, handling the earth, cultivating vegetation. She’ll take them back to her desk, restock her favorite tea, keep purging her loose papers, her files. One decade into her career, she’s ready to grow.