Reinheimer 1

Stephanie Reinheimer

Professor Jennifer Rodrick

English 115

19 November 2017

Word Count: 1417

The Harshness of Codependency

Another City is an assemblage of writings written by LA authors. The collection of

writings touches on many subjects: life, love, death, the poor, the wealthy, how the city of Los

Angeles is good, and how it is bad. In Tara Isons short story Cactus, she writes about a girl

named Holly, and her struggle of dating an outdoorsman when she is more of an indoors person.

Ison uses natural imagery, the contrast of safe versus unsafe, and the extended metaphor of a

cactus to reflect how the desert of LA is too harsh on Holly, leaving her scarred, lonely, and

emotionally dead.

Ison uses the foil of Holly and her boyfriend Josh to create the contrast of safe and

unsafe. Joshua had the job of leading hiking excursions in the desert for junior high and high

school kids. In other words, he was the tour guide for school field trips in the desert. He was

passionate about his job, and took it very seriously. Regarding the desert, he said it was the

vastness that got to them every time, what they succumbed to, the letting go of small things,

(Ison, 119). Josh enjoyed the immense desert because it made him small, allowing him to not

worry about the minor, first world problems that seem huge in a confined suburban environment.

Because the desert is so honest, (Ison, 124) and he knew a lot about it both factually, and from

experience, he had little to no fear being in it. Joshs love for nature is like the renowned poetess

Emily Dickinsons. In her 668th piece, Dickinson writes, Nature is what we know-/Yet we have
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no art to say-/So impotent Our Wisdom is/To her Simplicity. Like Josh says, Dickinsons poem

describes how we know nature, and we are aware of it, but our wisdom regarding nature does not

make us more powerful because it is simple to understand nature. Josh enjoys going out into the

desert because he finds safety in it; everything that it is, can be experienced and witnessed by

simply being there.

In contrast, Holly has little understanding of the desert. She thinks that going out in the

desert is more work than play, (Ison, 120). Unlike Josh, Holly rejects the limitless, and it is

because she wants to be a definite and significant part in his life. When he is packing to go on his

trips, she gets worried. Even though all the preparation and materials brought are to help Josh

survive, it only worries Holly more because things like the first aid kit didnt reassure [her]; it

confirmed [her] fears, (Ison 120). Holly is paranoid at the amount of preparation because there

is no knowing of what will happen, Josh must simply prepare for the worst. The beginning of the

short story begins with how Holly has not left her apartment in nine months. She says, I can

plant myself safely in the window seat, describing how she is like a simple houseplant that does

not need anything more than the light from the window. Holly is recluse, an indoors person.

After Joshs death, she crawled into the bathtub. The porcelain was cold, wonderfully solid,

anesthetic, and [she] could pull the shower curtain around to make [her]self a terrarium, (Ison,

131). By using words such as plant and terrarium, it reflects how Holly likes confined places

because the limited space allows her to know everything. Her way of living opposes Joshs, and

the descriptions of the vast unknown versus the enclosed spaces evoke this idea of safe versus

unsafe.

Because Josh spends more time in the desert, risking his life, than with her, Holly

attempts to be like the desert. Josh tells her Youre so independentyoure not very adaptable,
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(Ison 120). This implies that Holly is more like a cactus rather than a desert. (Ison 121). Ison

relates Holly to a cactus, that tough as cacti are, theyre also vulnerable, that it will refuse to

take root and then die, (Ison, 129). Holly is tough and independent, but like a cactus, she is still

vulnerable. When she goes into the desert with Josh, she refused to take root, she does not

understand the desert because she is a foreign species in that environment. Ison uses the extended

metaphor of a cactus to describe Hollys codependency with Josh. When in the desert together,

Holly lived on, drank from him. And that without him forever as wellspring, as font, [she]

would shrivel up to a small, withered, petty thing and die, (Ison, 128). Like a plant, Holly can

be planted, or put in a small place, but is dependent on Josh taking care of her because she is

rooted in him.

After Josh dies, like she says, Holly shrivels up to a small, withered, petty thing, (Ison,

128) in the bathtub and her reclusiveness isolated indoors intensifies. Holly emotionally dies

because Josh is no longer there to keep her alive. In contemporary, American poet Richard

Sikens poem Detail of the Woods, he states, everyone needs a place. It shouldnt be inside

someone else. Siken too uses natural imagery to describe the codependency that erupts between

people in a relationship. Although Holly was independent, she became codependent on Josh

because his touch always split [her] open into something tender and sweet. He saw in [her]

something luminous, ready to bloom. But it was all him, (Ison, 128). Holly grew attached to

him because of the way he viewed the world. Ison uses the cactus to symbolize Holly and the

desert to symbolize Josh. Like the relationship the cactus and the desert have, Holly and Joshs

relationship is the perfect ecosystemthe energy just keeps cycling, being transformed. Theres

life everywhere if you just look for it, (Ison, 123). Although she did not understand his

infatuation with the desert, the way he was able to find beauty in the desert was the same way he
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found beauty in Holly. She latched onto his beliefs regarding her because she did not believe

them about herself. She thought, I didnt deserve such significance, (Ison, 128), but Josh gave

her that significance. Holly found meaning because of him, a person she felt safe to reside in, just

as a cactus does in the desert.

When Joshs brother Paul, moves in with Holly, they are both emotionally dead because

of Joshs death. At the end of the story, he sleeps with Holly in an attempt to get [Holly] to

unfold, to pulse. It is April, and hes trying to get [Holly] to flower again (Ison, 134). Ison

continues the extended metaphor of Holly to a cactus by illustrating how she is dormant, unable

to bloom because she no longer has Josh to care for her. Paul tries to care for her, but hes

weak, insignificant, a pale imitation, (Ison, 134). Holly, like a cactus, refuses to take root in

Paul. Although Paul sleeps where Josh slept, wears Joshs old clothes, and looks like Josh, the

poor attempt emphasizes how dependent Holly was to Josh, and how nobody will ever be

equivalent to the way he cared about her. Like Holly creates Paul to be a cheap imitation of Josh,

Paul tries to find Josh in Holly. He confides in her, I miss JoshIm lonely, please isnt it time,

arent you lonely? (Ison, 133). In moving in with Holly, he has shifted his motivations in life to

be evolved around caring for her and finding Josh through her. Sarah Kay, a spoken word poet,

performed at the Urbana NYC Slam her spoken word titled The Type. In her deliverance, she

describes how some men will want to learn what it feels like to curl themselves into a question

mark around yousome men will want to hold you like the answer. In Hollys case, Paul curls

himself around her and holds her as if she is the answer, but she is not. Although they both

grieve about the same thing and both miss Josh, they act on their emotional dread differently.

By using the the narrative of Holly, Ison illustrates the emotional toll codependency has

on people. In the final paragraph, Holly embraces the cactus, the last reminder she has of Josh,
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the thing that once scarred her, but is now the only thing that will make her feel anything. Ison

relates the harsh LA environment to expose how individuals gain codependency when in a

relationship through the use natural imagery, the contrast of safe versus unsafe, and the extended

metaphor of a cactus.
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Works Cited

Dickenson, Emily. Nature is what we see, piece #668. The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson,

2003. pg. 276.

Kay, Sarah. The Type by Sarah Kay. YouTube, uploaded by speakeasynyc, 18 June 2013.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-8jtBOorpE Date Accessed: 19 Nov 2017

Ison, Tara. Cactus. Another City, 2001, edited by David L. Ulin, Library of Congress

Cataloging-in-Publication Data, pp. 117-134.

Siken, Richard. Detail of the Woods. poets.org, 2011,

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/detail- woods Date Accessed: 19 Nov 2017