A Harvest of Good That Explodes from Within (Introducing my Brother-in-Law, Mitch Baker)

And so I dug them out, the crowded plants whose leaves had been heavily harvested this week during the big Thanksgiving food pantry harvest (111 pounds, whereas two years ago it had been maybe 6).  I replanted just turnips, already strong with new leaves, my community garden bed undergoing a transformation, yet again, from crop to crop, from season to season.  There is no off-season when you are feeding people in need.  Hunger doesn't take a holiday, and constant attention to what's going to be "harvestable" next makes the difference between overflowing buckets and empty-handed.

My brother-in-law had called and was on his way, walking several miles, loving the hills of Atlanta after his flat walks in Florida, where he lives.  While waiting, I worked my way through the garden, adding turnips to my friend Bob's bed, where enormous lettuce heads had just been harvested; removing lettuce bases from David's bed to transplant over at the food pantry garden under the cold frame for winter growing, and replacing them with cold-hardy collards and kale; and watering the middle-school-students' bed and noting that this space which was nothing by grassy ground a mere month before would be ready to harvest when next they come. 

Mitch came bounding around the bend, swinging his arms, breathing in the cool morning air.  The previous year he couldn't get up the hill in front of my house, and here he was, strong, energetic, happy (the pictures to the right show him last year, and now).  He had pretty much been issued a death sentence last December 29 by his doctor, and that day, that very day, he changed.  In the following five months, through diet, exercise, and sheer will, he dropped 94 pounds and changed the trajectory of the rest of his life.  

We went over to the food pantry garden, where so many families had harvested this past week, where we have a plan in place to literally quadruple the size of the garden by summer for less than twenty dollars.  It was just a little more than a year ago when that space was nothing but grass as well.  It had transformed.  

I asked Mitch to "just do what you want to do" for my camera, and he did this (see picture at right).  And in that moment, I knew.  There is no time when we, as humans, are not transforming something, including ourselves.  There is no seed of change that isn't growing, right now, whether you can see it or not.  There will always be a harvest, of something, even if it's the knowledge to do something different next time.  And there are moments, such as this, when the harvest of good is so overwhelming that it overflows, that it explodes from within, and expresses itself in such a renewal of life's joy that you no longer question.  You simply no longer question.  Or, at least, I don't.

(And yes, ladies, Mitch is available.  He lives in Delray Beach, Florida, which is one of my favorite cities on earth--see one of my many posts about it, titled National Model of Sustainability.  He is kind, funny, smart, hard-working, poetic, and really open-minded.  He is not just my brother-in-law but also one of my very closest friends.  I'm feeling a bit like a yenta after a match that recently occurred with my friend David and another friend of mine as a result of this blog, so why not try with Mitch, too, right? Artsy, outdoorsy ladies who live in or near Delray Beach: email me for an intro.)

A Harvest of Good That Explodes from Within (Introducing my Brother-in-Law, Mitch Baker)