Roots Don't Have to Be Old to Sustain Us
Or, how Jenny Lewis expanded my view of the Ten of Pentacles
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My idol Jenny Lewis released her new record this month. One of the record’s singles is called “Puppy and a Truck,” and it’s the child-free woman in her forties anthem of my dreams.
It’s a cheerful little ditty about driving around with a hypo-allergenic poodle who gives her unconditional love and can even play in her band. In the song’s bridge, she sings:
I don’t got no kids,
I don’t got no kids.
I don’t got no roots.
I’m an orphan,
Catch me if you can.
I’m lacing up my boots.
Child-free women are so often made to feel selfish and regretful about their completely valid choice not to have kids. And Lewis’s unapologetic reveling in the fact that she’s got no kids has an empowering effect. Lewis is glamorizing her child-free forties, and why shouldn’t she? I love that my idol is living her best life. She’s foot-loose and fancy-free. Catch her if you can!
Mazel tov, I say!
(Fun fact: This is the first generation in which more women in their thirties don’t have kids than do! True story.)
And yet, the deconstructionist in me simultaneously sees another side.
On the one hand, having no kids - and thus no roots according to the lyrics - means we aren’t tied down. We are free to roam and explore to our heart’s content. And Lewis certainly celebrates that in this song.
But by the time she gets to “I don’t got no roots” and being an orphan, there’s a shadow side that she’s allowing us to see as well. Because while roots anchor us in place, even against our will, they also nourish us and give us a sense of belonging. Roots serve as veins that connect us to the earth and each other. Did you know that trees actually communicate with each other through their roots? Recent scientific research has shown that trees are communal and interdependent beings. Through their roots, they share water and nutrients. They even send distress signals to each other regarding drought, disease, and other threats.
Being unencumbered is one thing. Having no roots is another.
And the fact that the Ten of Pentacles, the tarot card that points to ancestry, generational wealth, and a stable family life, showed up twice for me this past week has me thinking about roots a lot.
For starters, I’ve always thought of roots as points of history or origin, markers of the past. When we refer to our “roots,” we usually mean who or what came before us. We speak of roots to point to things like cultural origin, lineage, and ancestry. In the common metaphor of family trees, we are leaves sprouted on branches that grew earlier from a trunk that rose up even earlier out of roots that emerged before all.
But here Jenny Lewis is equating not having kids - descendants, progeny - with not having roots.
Maybe roots don’t exclusively point to what came before us, but also what comes from us. Our ancestors are our roots, sure. But so are our children. The truth is our roots are living, breathing extensions of ourselves that exist simultaneously in past, present, and future.
In fact, when I look at the Ten of Pentacles with this catchy new single stuck in my head, if I had to identify a clear point of focus in the card (who am I supposed to be identifying with here?), it would probably be the elderly man in the foreground. And while we could interpret him as the patriarch of the family who has created a legacy of abundance, stability, and comfort for his children and grandchildren, we might also consider what he gets out of this set-up.
His descendants - and perhaps dependents - are his roots just as much as he is theirs, couldn’t we say?
While we’re at it, the particular moment in time memorialized in the Ten of Pentacles doesn’t even show our patriarch interacting with his human family. He is tending to the dogs! If roots can be captured in that snapshot, how else can they be crafted and experienced? How can we redefine and expand upon the idea of roots and the energy of the Ten of Pentacles tarot card? How can we get curious and creative about the various ways we grow roots and enjoy a sense of home and belonging?
A video store opened up near us recently. A real, honest-to-god 1980s and 1990s era video store. My husband and I went for the first time this past week after a night out for sushi left us in that awkward lurch of a bit too late to go to a second destination but too early to call it a night. A trip to the video store was the perfect stop before heading home. Browsing for movies, taking our two picks up to the counter, having the guy create an account for us and scan our movies into the computer, and showing us the little slot where we could return them in five days in case they were closed all felt so magical to me. There was nostalgia, sure, but I found myself oddly exhilarated about this home base to return to over and over again rather than just turning on the million movie-streaming options we have at home and picking something before I fall asleep. I imagined (in true Pisces fashion) running into the video store guy at the market and having him say, “Hey, Sliding Doors!” or “When Harry Met Sally! How’s it going!?”
Roots.
After graduation when I moved into my first non-college-affiliated apartment in Santa Monica, I couldn’t wait to get a Santa Monica Public Library card. It symbolized my status as a real, grown-up Santa Monica resident. It gave me that same home base feeling I felt at the video store.
Roots.
Every time a former student emails me to tell me they got into UCLA or got that scholarship or will be starting law school or film school in the fall or finally graduated after taking some time off and they couldn’t have done it without me, I cry. Without fail.
Roots.
I would surmise that most - if not all - humans probably have a drive to settle down, or nest, Ten of Pentacles style. But because our society generally doesn’t recognize all the varied and subtle ways we tend to do so, many of us think we don’t have a need or desire for roots, whether that means discovering long-standing ones that help us define who we are and where we come from or cultivating brand new ones to see how far out they can stretch over time.
Roots don’t have to be old to sustain us. Maybe they consist of nine generations of witches. Or a single generation - the first - of college graduates. Maybe they consist of ten years of military service. Or the first year in a new city. Maybe mine grow from a library card. Maybe yours from a puppy and a truck.
