New Orleans Guava

Guava grown in the 9th Ward!

A cold ripe guava I did not know as a boy in Iowa and man did I miss out. All those years, even traveling, they always fed me slices on a plate with papaya and pineapple and mango. But this in no way compares to the wet yellow flesh of the guava I picked last night, the guava that rested in the fridge until lunchtime.

And I sit, and I spit each seed, savoring these. And this is different than being outside, thirsty from work, moments before the rain, the way I ate guava like an apple and leaned over the back of my truck, the way I spit some of the seeds into a four-inch pot. 

Today is Jacob's turn to be right on time. He pulled up with my half of the pitanga from the seeds I gave him to start a couple months ago. I wonder will he give credit to CRISP for the ones he grows to full size. I wonder whether he will take care of the guava seeds I spit into the pot for him.

There’s a lady on the internet, says to soak guava seeds for ten or twelve days to remove the hard coating. Her voice is the voice of a computer, and I don't think that she’s right. All I have done is to soak the seed for a day, pour onto a washcloth, rub off the outer coating, soak again and repeat. After a couple times the seeds are ready to be dried.

This woman also said that you could boil the seeds for five minutes. Now this sounds bat shit crazy. But I’ll try it  because I have a bunch of seeds, but it does not seem to make sense. A lot of advice in the growing world does not make sense. Like the people who told me guava do not grow in new orleans. 

I can’t help but think of the kids who are told just how important these LEAP tests are for their futures. I can’t help but think that in ten years college will be unnecessary and the way of the man’s dresssuit will be bygone.

The middleman from the school walked by this morning with another man who held a sawzall he later used to trim the butterfly bush growing out from the brick of the school. I asked the middleman whether I could have a little more time. 

I told him, “This is four years of plants started from seed.”

“How about by the end of the week?”

I told him thank you. I was grateful.

The stalks of the pink amaranth I grew from seed collected just outside of Buddha’s birthplace were bigger round than a broom handle. I dug up only one, to see what might happen in the transplant, to see just how much the leaves might wilt. I’ve learned from growing, from winter, from moving things. I’ve learned the strength of roots, that even when the top of a plant seems to be struggling, there is an abundant strength that cannot be seen.

Maybe I’m like that. Maybe we are all like that. We have these thoughts that no longer serve us, that once seemed so necessary, that once were necessary, but in order to move our soul forward, there is the need to cut away what no longer works, to allow the roots to get stronger, to shed what they no longer need.

Maybe you have heard me speak of nitrogen fixers or coppice trees, the way these can be used to feed other plants. The way some of these work is that when you cut a branch, an equal section of the root dies underground. 

Maybe this is how neuroplasticity works. When the thought comes that no longer serves and you are able to snip this immediately, perhaps the same snipping takes place inside the reaction of the body. Where there was once tightness there is a loose sort of feeling, a breezy feeling, a place where anxiety and worry becomes love.

What might take me a little more time to consider is the thousands of seeds and dozens of plugs I planted a week before I was told about going in another direction. It’s hard to watch all of these just starting to come up, to know what they would have been by December, to know that they will likely be thrashed over with an industrial lawnmower.

Then again there is the gift of filling in the edges at CRISP and on Needle Street, of taking the fig trees and running these across the back, right in front of the graffiti where Elery painted, “You grow girl”. 

I have learned the importance of the edge, and I know there is something to be found in a middle that is clear, through an eye that can see.