"When the stranger yelled at me from his car window, I was carrying my Zamioculcas zamiifolia, a large tropical plant I had just bought at a greenhouse. I couldn't hear what he said, but I don't think he was complimenting my plant. His words, whatever they were, brought to mind all of the derogatory comments and crude propositions I had heard before, from different car windows and different men: all of the comments about my body and suggestions for what I could do with it."
"When I was a little girl, playing shirtless in my family's garden, my body felt as if it belonged only to me. We had a rectangle-shaped yard out of which we would dig a smaller rectangle, and this dark patch of soil would become our garden. At 5, 6 and 7 years old, my siblings and I laughed as we shook out fat chunks of grass and produced a shower of dirt that went up our noses and down our chests."
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