Open Door!
Tadpoles. Life will carry on, with or without us.
Some would say we create our futures in the present moment, that who we are today is who we are forever. I wonder whether my fear led to what will happen tomorrow. Every plant I put into the ground at Mystery Garden I did so with the fear that what about if and when they build on this ground. And so I planted around the edges, the spot that is best begun first anyway, and I created paths. I wanted to let the middle grow up and it would not matter were the ground to be stripped and covered in sand.
I lived in the future today, labeling jaboticaba seeds, phalsa, and strawberry guava as having been started on July 28 even though it’s really July 27. And when I look into the future, what I want to see is this, fruit in the hands of those standing on the space where I grow, a certain sense of forever, or at least until I’m gone, where what I have started I can watch become something.
Isn’t this what i’ve always wanted, to feel that I have a hand in creation, to know that the strawberry guava I ate earlier was started by me years ago, to know that the more I grow, the more seeds that there will be. To be able to share all that I have created.
Perhaps what the space where I live needed was more citrus, and so when I dig the trees that might otherwise be lost I can say a prayer that their roots stay strong until October, or I can go all Sepp Holzer on them and just let the strongest survive. If I had a hundred trees, this would be easy. If I knew how to graft or was able to successfully propagate cuttings I would be more likely to plant everything right away. And so I will look at life right now through the eyes of one who knows how to graft and propagate. You can call me Mr. Proper Grafter!
It’s still strange to think of plants as money, to think of selling what innately belongs to everyone, to be told with my first and only comment on my listing that my prices are too high. And yet, what I am selling is abundance, the same abundance I’m happy to give to those who cannot afford it. And so maybe I set a sign in the middle of the neutral ground where St. Claude meets Lesseps, right beside Andy’s bike sign, that might simply say this: food, art, plants. FAP. That’s where it’s at. FAP.
I have sold bracelets and shipped these to different places, to Texas and Ohio and Maine. Tomorrow I may ship one to California. For me this is a special sending of energy, more than jewelry. This is the laughter and the curiosity of the land. This is the moment Springtime fell into the pond after I told her mom that they would just be watering the plants and not each other. This is the concentration on the canvas that Nikolai displays when he paints. This is the bench that the two brothers helped me build around the pear tree on Needle Street, the pear tree that made pies for years until the hurricane knocked her down.
This is even the idea that comes with this making of bracelets and this who am I kidding, and this idea that I’m never going to figure this out. This is the endless loop that keeps me trapped. This is me telling this thinking, No more!
This is Tyreek’s mom who calls him Steven, because that’s his name, even though he prefers to be called Tyreek. When I told her I’m no longer working for the school, that I don’t have money coming in to pay him, she said, “God’s got you.” And this is the idea that God’s always got me. This is just easier to see when everything unfolds in a manner that makes me comfortable.
The greatest gift is to continue to start seeds that become plants that go into the ground.
I ate moringa and elderberry less than an hour ago, neither of which have ever been watered, looked after, cared for in the manner we associate with a garden these days.
And there is a pothole you might miss if you did not know to look for it, on the corner of Lesseps and Urquhart, and in this pothole, right now, you can see the universe if you bend down and look, for the rain has made a puddle and the puddle has brought life, and thousands of black tadpoles swim, and I remember getting in trouble over this very same puddle a couple years ago. I’d brought all the kids without permission from their parents and we cut plastic bottles with scissors so they could keep a part of that world, of that day, of that moment for their porches.
And maybe that’s the journey that I take along the way, to try to hold, to pay attention in order to never forget. That’s the glory. To take moments of wonder and curiosity of days before into the days when we no longer remember.
And so, if, instead of worrying about digging up the trees, I had concentrated only on building up the soil for the moment, I have to wonder whether I would still be digging up all of what I planted. But I will not stay there for too long, only to use as a momentum for moving forward, for moving toward abundance and the vision of a future self that resides within me right now.
