Sunflower Oil

A Place I Get to Be a Part Of

There is something to be said about being the dumbest guy in the room. Especially in a world created in my mind that puts such strength in the idea of intelligence. How to learn if I’m only around those who I know more than? There will always be those who know less than me. There will always be those who know more than me.

I have a vision. I can see this. I don’t know exactly what it will be, but all I have to do is bring the oil. 

You see..there’s a story from the bible, a lady who said to Ezekiel, “I’m going to eat this last meal and then die.” Ezekiel said, “Baby.” In this story, Ezekiel is from New Orleans. He told that lady to go get her flour and her oil and she would always have what she needed to make bread.

He said, “But bring me a piece first.”

May seem that Ol’ Ezekiel was trying to get a free meal like one of the monks who stand inside Hong Kong Market in a robe with bowls. But no. Ezekiel was God in drag, meaning that if we always seek to serve God first, our own bounty will be endless. We cannot know what it might possibly be like. Our job is to bring the oil.

I’ve been thinking about this since Sunday when I heard a preacher from Las Vegas tell the story. I try to do my best. Truth is, I'm always doing my best. But sometimes I drift into remorse, worry, or morbid reflection. I can’t see how something is supposed to work out and because of this I become paralyzed.

Today is Tuesday. May something. Yesterday I spoke with a man on the corner in the neighborhood in Arabi where I moved with my new wife in January. He stood on a lot where I planted sunflower seeds in March. Sunflower plants that got mowed down with the whole lot a month later. 

But today was different. He was with another man, looking over a long row of corn, another long row of beans. He said his name was Rick. I recognized him from the house with the two goats. 

I remembered days after I saw the lot mowed, the sunflower seeds with it, a Bobcat, a truck, a trailer, and a group of men in machines cracking through what was once the foundation of a house. They hauled away concrete. 

That same Bobcat then moved a pile of composted soil into rows. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The only oil I had were the seeds I planted around the stop sign of what I thought would forever be an abandoned lot. Seems God had something better. Seems God took my oil and decided I would be able to do something with Rick.

I told him the beans and corn looked good.

He said, “You want a row?”

“Absolutely!”

I told him that I would plant some guava if that was okay. I even said, “Guayaba”. Maybe to show that I was cultured?

And guava would have been fine, ten or twelve in that long row, but I only planted a couple. I wanted to do something that Rick and his friend and all of the neighbors could get right away. So I soaked Alabama Red and Creole okra seeds that I had collected in the past. And I made rows within the rows, and I popped some holes in the ground in the middle and dropped some saved Madhu Ras melon seeds.

He had given me the fifth row. The fourth was unplanted on Monday. This morning, when I was leaving, after picking up the containers that once held my seeds, I saw an empty packet on row number four. Turned it over. Sunflowers.