Test

Francine is coming. A hurricane. Two sides. Duality. Control and letting go. What I consider when a plant goes into the ground. What I consider when I want to save something.

Permanence is what we’re after. And permanence does not exist.

I see the fruit in the quantum field. The physical efforts of my labor. The result of my attempts. I see starlings outside the window. Hundreds, if not thousands of them, and I wonder whether they are what is called a monoculture. I wonder whether they are unique to Arabi and what might be done so that some of them get eaten and other birds come in their place.

I am supposed to be thinking of a test, of a way that I might compare different growing techniques, of how we could extend the season here in New Orleans, of how we might make fruit desirable in a market.

Instead, I consider a Peregrine falcon I met ten years ago in the 9th Ward. I consider the way she sat atop the fence beyond Miss Lee’s porch. The way baby chicks ran and tried to hide beneath one of those black trash bins that get stolen sometimes. The black trash bins where people sometimes paint their address or name or a lavish marking of art so that their bin cannot be mistaken. 

I think of what it means to have mine. To have ours. To come together and find the seeds that will fruit. To come together and share what we know while still standing with the need to be appreciated. A trait inherent. A trait that allowed for our survival. A trait that spread tribes far and wide and eventually led to cities.

I think of Croatia, specifically Split, where fig trees grew in spots that only the city seemed to take care of, and yet these trees grew from cracks of rock and added something, an invitation maybe, an attempt to see the hand of man combined with the heart of fruit.

I read recently that olives and figs put out carbon dioxide during the day while all the other trees exude oxygen. I think about how the branches of trees bend. Think about comparing papaya and moringa to the trunk of an oak and which would split quicker?

I’m supposed to be thinking about a test. I know that behind every cause is another cause and another cause behind this. 

The birds fly in unison.

I picked my first fruit from a sugar apple tree I grew from seed in a three-gallon pot, a tree they call Pinha or Fruta de Condo in Brazil, a tree no more than three years old, and so, the question I want to ask is this: can we provide fruit for the people of the city? Could there be a cafe that functions inside and out, a place where piano music can play and rain will not destroy the places to sit, and in this, would sugar apples do better in pots or in the ground covered for the winter?

So this test seems simple. And this is what the grant people want. Simplicity that can be replicated. Proof that there is a need. 

We long for need. A longing need. For explanation. For permanence. For certainty.

A want to understand what reaches and why. How we introduce ourselves to trees we have never met. How the taste of something new brings nostalgia for a place we have never been.

I’ve been speaking a lot here of we and us and including you in my conversation. I hope that I am not overstepping my bounds. There is a need to find what exists between us, to know that in the winds of a hurricane we can bend, to know that without diversity there will be a thousand birds singing the same song. Water will pour into a crack of concrete and swirl into a hole, never to be seen again.

So here is what we will do, to plan for that cafe that is neither inside or out, neither nature or man. Always both. Always yes…and…

We will take four simple plots with three different kinds of sugar apple, four trees each, different ages, hailing from different places, and the first spot will be in a three-gallon pot inside the greenhouse year round. The second set will sit in three-gallon pots outside only when the temperature is above forty degrees. The third will go in the ground outdoors and be protected by tree socks any time the temp dips below forty. The fourth and final group will blow with the wind and wilt with the heat and freeze when it gets too cold.

And my hypothesis is this…