When The Husband and I moved to the desert a few years ago, we had a rude awakening—and it had nothing to do with the 109º July days. It had to do with persistent proclamations of death.

(I do have a flair for the dramatics.)

You know about agave plants, right? Yes, they are where tequila comes from—you get an A, you little barfly you! We had three mature ones in our backyard and oh, how pretty they were to look at with margaritas in hand. One day a weird stalk emerged out of one of them, much like how a not-small hair appears on your chin one afternoon. “WTF is going on with this giant asparagus stalk?” we texted Jesus (our landscaping guy—not the Lord).

Jesus gave us a sermon on death that day. Via text.

Here’s the scoop:

When you see a stalk popping out of the middle of an agave—known as a quiote—it’s a giant beacon of its pending death. The agave puts its last dying effort into blooming a once-in-its-lifetime, enormous asparagus rosette-shaped flower that produces seeds and flowers. How noble is an agave for reproducing itself to death?

The stalk acts as a banner that reads “I’m dying soon.”

We’ve gotten into the morbid habit of pointing melodramatically at agaves with stalks all around town, loudly condemning them as “DEAD!” (We should say “DEAD SOON!” but “DEAD!” has more gravitas.) We go on a lot of walks, so we point and declare at least six agaves to be DEAD! a day. Our neighbors aren’t worried about us at all.

So at the beginning of December we gasped in horror as the giant agave in our front walkway sported a you know what: a death knell. We lamented its approaching death, and then we switched pretty fast into gambling mode—making bets on the date it would reach the top of the fence (The Husband won). It grew five feet in a month! It appears to be desperate to just bloom already, racing towards death.

Here’s the thing (don’t worry—I’m culminating this soon, because you can only take so many minutes of landscaping talk before you require three tequila shots): WE ARE ALL GOING THE WAY OF THE AGAVE. Some of us are dying sooner than others, but we’re all in the midst of a terminal situation. We just don’t get the “I’m dying soon” banner ahead of time that the stalk signals for the agave.

If we did sprout quiotes for all to see, would that be a good thing? Would you want to know your time was severely limited, instead of just run-of-the-mill limited? Would you want to hear your obnoxious neighbors whispering “DEAD!” to one another as they walked by you? Would your asparagus stalk help you live with more urgency?

I Googled quiotes and one of the People also ask questions that popped up was “What do I do?”. It’s understandable for people to wonder if there is anything they can do to stop the quiote death train (Jesus already told us there isn’t a novina that can keep the plant alive, my friends). There was basic Buddhist-flavored-advice like, “Don’t panic: It’s a natural process; the plant has finished its main life. Appreciate the cycle of life.” Yep, I’ll buy that. But it’s this answer from a horticulturist that I love so darned much:

“There’s no stopping an agave from dying after it flowers, so you might as well enjoy the show.”

You might as well enjoy the show.

And there we have it. Are you enjoying the show, before your stalk grows tall and kills you? Before your time is up?

Look in the mirror, whisper “DEAD!”, and then get out there and make it a show worth enjoying.