Inch by Inch, Row by Row, and Other Simple Truths

I hooked up the hose and turned it on as my friend David dragged it to water the raised garden beds at the food pantry after families in need finished harvesting.  As I walked around the corner to help him, I saw that a food pantry client had walked over and was holding the hose behind David.  As David worked his way around the garden, the man followed him holding the hose.  They didn't speak until the end, when David thanked him, in both English and Spanish, and the man nodded and returned to his place in line with the others waiting for the food pantry doors to open.  

I sat on a stone wall with my friend James, and watched this simple, silent, beautiful dance of humanity.  And I was humbled to think of the very many simple actions people who had not all that long ago been strangers had taken with me in just these past couple of months to add rows to our gardens.  Rows.  For some reason, rows.  All I can think about are rows--the one at my home garden that I added as my 2012 Plant a Row.  The one right here at the food pantry.  The one at the new urban farm incubator in my friend's backyard.  And the one I just marked out with my friends Robert, Laura, and Jim in the back field at the community garden so both the city and the garden board can visualize it for potential approval, so that the middle school kids have a "row to grow."  

And lyrics from this song (which is one of my favorites of all time) rushed through my head:

Inch by inch, row by row
Gonna make this garden grow
All it takes is a rake and a hoe
And a piece of fertile ground

Inch by inch, row by row
Someone bless these seeds I sow
Someone warm them from below
Till the rain comes tumbling down
 
Pulling weeds and picking stones  
Man is made of dreams and bones
Feel the need to grow my own
Cause the time is close at hand

Grain for grain, sun and rain
Find my way in nature's chain
Tune my body and my brain
To the music from the land

Plant your rows straight and long
Temper them with prayer and song
Mother Earth will make you strong
If you give her love and care

Old crow watching hungrily
From his perch in yonder tree
In my garden it's as free
As that feathered thief up there

I've been singing that song all week, and, although it is often thought of as a children's song, I have never seen it that way. In fact, it moves me to tears, every single time, with its simple truths.  I guess I am realizing that perhaps that's the best we can do in this world, to keep trying to create and cultivate something good.  Inch by inch.  Row by row.  Literally.  Metaphorically.  And we sit on a stone wall one day and we see what has grown.  And then we add to it.  Inch by inch.  Row by row.  With, really, no end in sight, not even the criticism of a crowd, the barriers of bureaucracy, or the limits of a lifetime. 

You can watch Dave Mallett, who wrote the song, perform it here.

And so, my girls will get their copies of the book I wrote for them next week, a book which is on its own little journey now (and about which I was grateful to have the opportunity to mention on Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution site this week).  Presents will be opened, and food will be eaten, and pots will be banged at midnight on New Year's.  And then, once more, I will stand at my back door and look at the January garden, my favorite one of the year.  The dirt. The dreams. The uncertainties of what the new year holds that are both scary and scintillating.  And I will once again take the garden, and life, the only way I know how.  Inch by inch, and row by row.  And I will, as always, trust the journey.

Thank you for joining me on our FoodShed Planet this year, for your support of my book and other initiatives, and for all that you continue to teach me.  I will see you again in 2012.  Until then, I wish you peace in your heart, peace on earth, and a row of your own to grow, however you define that. 

Inch by Inch, Row by Row, and Other Simple Truths