The Seed Library

Hope in a box

I am obsessed with seeds. Packets of seeds, seed mixes. Non-GMO, open pollinated seeds that can be grown again and again. I keep them in plastic boxes in my fridge equipped with a silica packet. Think index card filing boxes (as a throw-back) but filled with seeds. Few things give me more joy than rifling through them, adding go their number, planting some in those little compostable egg carton-esque flats with seed sprouting mix. They need the right amount of light, a steady temperature, regular watering. They are tender, susceptible to all manner of molds and invisible ailments. They are filled with possibility.

Most are vegetables. I ordered a set that offers up everything from butternut squash to bell peppers and basil. Add in tomatoes and melon, chives and carrots. Plus, I’ve sourced special varies: a set of heirloom tomatoes that includes black krim, red cherry, green zebra. Cherokee purple. Also asparagus, artichoke and radicchio––in pink! (see above) I am beside myself with joy over these seeds. But I am a renter who is liable to move in a few months. Who is still looking for where exactly to settle and not attached to a piece of land I can cultivate over time. I’ve ordered raised beds on wheels. I’m in between.

Meanwhile–––for those in the US ( though not limited to here) –––we face a country in turmoil. We are either out in the streets where we might see a person slammed to the ground, or sitting in bed looking at the news to see a child in blue a bunny-eared hat taken by authorities. This is not a moment of tenderness. It is not a moment when we know what to do with our own tender hearts. Those behaving as if every person who was not born here or who is brown-skinned or who is protecting their friend/neighbor is a criminal, are not answering their better angels.

There have been studies that show that junior high kids who are given a baby to hold score higher on empathy tests afterward. Is that what we need? To hold something or someone helpless for a while? To hold ourselves and each other with tenderness? We are at our best when we when we attend to what is vulnerable. And maybe that’s what I’m trying to do with all these seeds; finding a way to tend, to take care of.

And more than that, finding a way to give my attention to something that can grow and, someday, nourish. I may eat a bell pepper, but it’s not the same as tending the bell pepper and making sure the whole plant thrives. I want our whole plant to thrive. The plant of country, the plant of world. It takes love to grow things.

And that is my hope for us. Not just the seed growing (though that, too) but the hope that we are, even now( and so many of us) sorting through seeds, planting them. Planning a garden and a harvest that will nourish us all.