The Lesson of the Watermelons, 2011 (Or, Why I Now Know What I Need to Do Next)

Watermelons seem to teach me big lessons every year, and this year was no exception.  In fact, I believe that perhaps this year I learned the biggest lesson of all.

I parked by the bus, the same way my younger daughter and I did several weeks earlier when we delivered the watermelons. Donating ten watermelons a week each week  of summer camp for the Fugees Family refugee children was not a hard thing to do, with five other friends of mine helping, each taking a week, just like we did last year.  It was a small, small thing that made me feel at least a little bit involved with efforts started by the truly awe-inspiring Luma Mufleh to provide life-changing opportunities of refugee children of war, until one day when I could do more.  Until one day when I figured out what that "more" might be.

My daughters came with me.  In fact, my older daughter came with me to almost every social sustainability outreach effort in which I participated this week.  She is suddenly more interested, having just taken a course on global politics and social justice.  She harvested with me for the food pantry for the first time. She came to our second pear gleaning.  And she was particularly interested in attending the Fugees Family Summer Showcase.  After so many instances in the last year or two when it was clear I needed to let her go (see here and here), the earth stopped rotating for just one millisecond when I realized she was already coming back to me.  There is no greater, more unexpected gift I could have gotten this week.

Except, perhaps, for what happened next.

After viewing and participating in fun, impressive, interactive projects that the Fugees campers displayed (since these children are often far behind their classmates in public school, a large portion on their summer was spent learning, in creative, hands-on ways that represent best practices of education anywhere), one of the boys escorted my daughters and me to another building, where a presentation was about to occur.  As we were walking and talking (he came from East Africa, he had been here a year, he had a large family, he learned English from the Fugees and TV, that kind of thing), I asked him what was his favorite part of summer camp.  

He said, "Every Tuesday and Thursday, we play soccer.  And after soccer, we get to have watermelons."  He didn't know I had helped deliver them.  I didn't say anything because it wasn't necessary, and also because I couldn't--he had taken my breath away.  Minutes later, when I sat down in the audience and glanced at the handout we had been given, I saw a short list of acknowledgements, and every one of us who delivered the watermelons was on it.  Bob.  Rebecca.  Page.  Susan.  Karen.  (And Ashley had been the backup.)  I literally gasped.  My older daughter glanced over to see what happened, and I pointed to the program. 

"I can't believe we were honored like that.  It was so, so small what we did," I whispered.  But all the way home, this nagged at me.  Maybe it wasn't so small.  But it was.  Okay, well, maybe, just maybe, small matters. 

I kept thinking back to that evening, still trying to sort it all out.

 
* Numerous children had taken the microphone and spoken about their movie projects, which we then viewed.  About coming to America (they have come to America, not by way of the Statue of Liberty, as my grandparents did, but by way of Clarkston, Georgia, just 13 miles from where I live--click that link for one of my favorite posts of the past five years on FoodShed Planet).  About Thanksgiving.  About riding the MARTA bus. 

* One of the very first Fugees boys, a tall young man, said he is now on his way to college. 

* Luma came to the stage reluctantly, not liking public speaking (although her aura fills the room when she does), and told the story about how this college-bound boy was about to buy a t-shirt from one of the tables at the showcase and she said to him, "Don't spend your money on that--you need it for college," and he replied, "I want to support the Fugees." And so he did, now, as a man, for the first time.  She asked humbly if we would all do so as well.  She asks on her website for five dollars.  Something very small, which I now know matters.

It kept at me for the next day or so, this growing awareness about how at home I felt there, the constant sensation I have that I am meant to do more for the Fugees Family.  For Luma.  About the direction I feel, and which I trust implicitly, without knowing why.  It'll be years before I am back in New York, and for now I am here.  And my mother always said, "Blossom where you are planted."

And then it hit me.  The school.  Luma is planning to build the first school for refugees in the nation.  The land has been purchased and cleared.  The zoning variance has passed.   The school (with regulation-sized soccer fields, of course) has been professionally designed. (See more about Fugees Village here.)

And at the very front of the school grounds?  A community garden is planned, with a plot for the family of every single student so that they can grow their own healthy, culturally-appropriate food. 

And that I can do.  Well, only in the world of dreams right now, but "if you dream it, you can live it," right?  And "you're never given a dream without also being given the ability to make it come true," right?  And "whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it," right? 

So here is my dream, as told to my husband.

"I want to tell you this crazy dream, just in case it comes true so you can remember how we sat here and thought I was out of my mind and completely unrealistic,"  I said to him on the couch after viewing a Yankees segment about that baseball organization's inspiring annual "Yankee Week of Hope" and feeling a bit, yet again, like anything is possible.

He smiled.  He humors me sometimes, and we balance each other, but a part of him is starting to believe in the impossible, along with me.

"You know how I'm planning on donating a small portion of the proceeds from Food for My Daughters to help grow food for those in need?"

He nodded.

"Well, if I sell a million copies, I can build the community garden for the Fugees.  It'll be expensive, and it will need to be done right, and there will need to be money for ongoing care of it."

This was about when he handed me yesterday's NewYork Times article about the rise in self-published books that says most writers can expect to sell about 150 copies of their books, and most will sell many fewer. 

This was about when I told him that the lady in charge of the AJC Decatur Book Festival (the largest independent book festival in the United States), where I will be debuting Food for My Daughters Labor Day Weekend, told me that bringing 20 copies would be enough.

This was about when I checked my Amazon CreateSpace account and saw that the designer doing the nine single-spaced pages of final edits and adding the additional dozen or so photos had not yet finished, and it's already almost August 1 (and I want this book up on Amazon by August 15, after having the chance to actually hold a finished copy in my hands first).

But then I remembered how at least forty Fugees children (including a group of girls, for the first time, who are the exact age as my younger daughter) put out their hands, looked my daughters and me in the eyes, and introduced themselves in the course of that evening.  Their enthusiasm was infectious, their manners impeccable.  And although we couldn't always understand everything they said, the message was loud and clear. 

Small matters. They matter. We matter. It all matters. 

And, with your help (by telling your network of friends, family, and business associates about Food for My Daughters once it is available, and by featuring it on your blog and social media outlets), I want to do more for them. I want to fund and help build their garden.

The Lesson of the Watermelons, 2011 (Or, Why I Now Know What I Need to Do Next)

And I Knew That One Day I Would Be Back. For Good. (My Pilgrimage to Ground Zero)

I had to go.  With the 10-year anniversary of the attacks of 9/11/01 in less than two months and my book, inspired by those horrific events, coming out in mere weeks, I had to go.  An opportunity presented itself, and my younger daughter and I hitched a ride with my husband as he went to pick up my older daughter at a university up north.  I ended up all over the New Jersey/New York metropolitan area, including not only my childhood home, my favorite beaches, and the tree where my first boyfriend broke up with me because I wouldn't smoke and drink in the park, but also at my ultimate destination, Ground Zero.  

Standing in the graveyard of St. Paul's Chapel, I craned my neck to see the hole in the nation's heart across the street, to make sense of it all, finally, after ten years. Yet, all I could see were, well, cranes.  I strolled through the chapel, where a truly phenomenal exhibit has emerged that captures not only the artifacts of that time, when the church helped care for firefighters at work in the pit of hell, but also the spirit of humanity that somehow enables us to persevere at times when we wonder how on earth we will be able to do that.  

I had gone to Liberty Island on the ferry, for the first time in my life despite growing up 16 miles from Manhattan, and had finally seen, up close and personal, the "Lady with the Torch," as my older daughter had nicknamed her when she was about three years old.  All of my children's great-grandparents were immigrants who passed through Ellis Island in the early 20th century.  They practiced a total of three different religions and came from a total of eight different countries.  I told my younger daughter, who was with me, that they had come not just for themselves, and not just for me, but for her.  For the same reason I do what I do.  With the same hope I have for my grandchildren.  For a better world.

I saw the bamboo fence in the distance, from my seat on top of the ferry as we made our way back to Battery Park.  I knew that fence was made with bamboo repurposed from the Big Bambu art exhibit on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art which I had seen last year at this time when I visited NYC as well.  After disembarking and buying pickled vegetables and lemonade from the Fatty Crab's shack in the park, I bee-lined for the bamboo fence as my daughter curled up under a shady tree nearby with a book.  Here is a video of what I found, just blocks from Ground Zero, for the first time since the Dutch settlers: 

Battery Park Urban Farm video

I met a graduate student there named Alex from Cornell University who is doing his thesis on environmental education (and who has been in the United States for just seven years), and who was intrigued that at least eight area schools are involved in this urban farm.  I also met a young woman named Mia, an intern at the Battery Park Urban Farm (about which I wrote here as well) who chose to move to New York City over Detroit and Chicago in her pursuit of learning more about urban agriculture.  She is considering graduate programs in public health.

As Mia and I stood there talking, I could feel it, my world shifting, my heart starting to plant roots.  And I knew that one day I would be back, for good.  New York is my home, and it is calling me.  This urban farm.  The rooftop gardens (and the incredible potential for so many more).  The bike lanes absolutely everywhere, that weren't there when I lived here before.  The High Line linear park on what was until recently a forgotten elevated train track.  (see video below)

The High Line, and Other NYC Greening Efforts

The Union Square Greenmarket, where I first saw my first stalk of Brussels sprouts all those years ago.  (see video below)

Union Square Green Market

The Science Barge.  The recycling bins absolutely everywhere.  The trains and buses.  The walking, walking, walking.  The complete ease with which I found vegetarian meals and local, organic choices.  The incredible joy I felt.  How much I fit in.  How much good I think I could do there with what I have learned and what I still want to learn.

Back in metro Atlanta, after a 17-hour Amtrak train ride with my younger daughter (my husband and older daughter off touring colleges throughout the northeast), I felt lost.  I went outside and harvested in an attempt to reconnect.  I suppose it's no coincidence that, 43 pounds of crops later, I spent the next two days cooking.  Sauces.  Muffins.  Pickles.  Pasta dishes.   Nibbling honeydew melon balls from a 14-pound beauty we grew from an heirloom seed from Poland that I bought from an Italian seed company. 

I had done my final edit of my book, Food for My Daughters (what one mom did when the towers fell, and what you can do, too) while on my trip.  As I submitted these changes to my publisher, I toggled through emails from really the best friends a person could have. 

* I tried to find goats to eat brambles so the Title 1 school with the vegetable garden we helped revitalize wouldn't spray chemicals to eradicate the thorny mess surrounding it.  

* I provided feedback on my city's memo about the viability of public fruit trees (and was happy to discover that black walnut, serviceberry, crabapple, and pawpaw are already on the approved street tree list). 

*  I swung by the community garden and found the first eggplant from those plants that Eugene gave me that I didn't think would make it, and harvested tomatoes that wouldn't last until the food pantry Wednesday.

Yet, I still knew my new truth.  I am being called elsewhere.  Not today.  Not tomorrow.  I still have bridges to cross here.  But one day, in the not-too-distant future, the bridges I cross will be the Delaware Water Gap and the George Washington Bridge.  And, although the towers won't rise again in New York City, the "towers" of these bridges will always remind me of them.  And I will be home again.

 

And I Knew That One Day I Would Be Back. For Good. (My Pilgrimage to Ground Zero)

1 Pear Tree. 1 Hour. 567 Pounds for Those in Need. Have a Nice Day. UPDATED

The response was immediate.  City Councilor John Heneghan asked the police for help with traffic.  Chief Grogan replied, "Just tell me when and where and we'll be there."  Don-of-the-rain-garden got permission from the head of the Dunwoody Preservation Trust, which owns the pear tree that was hanging heavy with ripe fruit, and said he'd bring his ladder and tarps.  Ann said she'd get the five red buckets back from the church where we deliver produce from the community garden for the 100-or-so families in need on Wednesdays.  Van would bring his fruit picker tool.  A dozen or so people said they would come, including Shawn-who-fell-from the-sky (who is now co-leader of Team Food Pantry as I am stepping down, and the garden she started is now self-sustaining), who was tapping in from vacation to stay on top of updates.

I contacted Craig Durkin of an Atlanta-based fruit gleaning volunteer organization named Concrete Jungle to find out more about his group, and to get specific advice for Operation Pear Tree.  Inspired predominantly by a group named Not Far from a Tree in Ontario, Canada, Craig and a friend named Aubrey Daniels developed Concrete Jungle as a fruit-and-nut-tree food recovery program when they started noticing how much fruit was left to rot all over Atlanta.  The group has been operating officially since 2009, and they currently have over 800 trees in their database.  They kick off each fruit harvest year with service berries and work their way through  blackberries, blueberries, peaches, plums, figs, pears, apples, muscadines, native persimmons (it would take a lot for me to eat another one of those after this), pawpaws, pomegranates, and even a citrus fruit named flying dragon.  To date, they have donated over 3,000 pounds of recovered fruit to local food pantries.  

As opposed to Not Far from the Tree, which gives a portion of the gleaned fruit to the homeowner where residential trees are harvested, Craig has found that Atlanta homeowners who give permission for their trees to be gleaned do not seem to want any of the fruit for themselves.  Therefore, just about all of it goes to those in need.  Craig and the rest of the folks from Concrete Jungle harvest every single Sunday morning from about June through October (this morning, they are harvesting peaches from under the power lines in residential backyards near Emory University).  This is in stark contrast to where you will find Craig during the week--he is an industrial engineer who works for a nanotechnology company doing experiments and writing reports in a windowless office.  Talk about yin and yang!

I was all set to see if I could arrange for a cherry picker truck to help us harvest when Craig gave this seasoned advice, "We find it works best if one person climbs the tree and shakes it, and four people hold a tarp and catch the fruit."  Well, that certainly simplified things! 

Craig and several other members of Concrete Jungle came to help us Saturday morning. (Pictured to the left is Robby Astrove of Concrete Jungle--guess where Robby works?  With my friend Rashid!)  (By the way, the link is up for my Urban Farm magazine article that features Rashid, and other urban farmers nationwide).  City Councilor Robert Wittenstein, who had arrived on bicycle (as usual), was first up the tree.  Octogenarian Rod Pittman (remember this post about Rod?) was right behind him, and spent most of the next hour perched precariously close to the top branches.  Craig relieved Robert after awhile, and every time I looked at him up there in his element, I noticed a wide smile across his face.  The people holding the tarp were laughing, yelling, and ducking their heads while gripping tightly as literally hundreds of pears cascaded down on them (we estimate we harvested about 1,000).  The only youth on the city's Sustainability Commission, Danny Kanso, was there as well (he is working on a city-wide school garden initiative--here he is featured on my friend Bob's blog, meeting my friend, Rashid).  Pictured to the right is Sally Malone, co-leader of Team Food Pantry (and Van's wife).  And look closely and you'll see Craig smiling in the tree in the photo below!

Here's a short video that captures the essence of the experience for you:

We filled the five buckets, and a handful of large bags as well.  We weighed them on my ridiculous talking scale.  "You weigh 88 pounds," it said as the first red bucket weighed in, followed by "Have a nice day."  "You weigh 96 pounds.  Have a nice day."  "You weigh 94 pounds.  Have a nice day."  And so on.  Pictured is City Councilor Robert Wittenstein holding the bags on the scale as Angela, the community garden treasurer, recorded the numbers, subtracting Robert's weight, of course! 

  

Rebecca Barria, the young mom who fell out of the sky two years ago right about now to be the chair of the first community garden in what was then the newest city in the United States (Semmes, Alabama, which started operating two months ago, now holds the title that Dunwoody held for two and half years), said to me, "What was the thought process that had you decide this scale was the one to buy?" 

"It had me at have a nice day," I told her.

The bottom line?  One pear tree.  One hour.  A dozen people.  567 pounds for those in need.  This public fruit gleaning will serve as a case study for my community (and yours) as to what is possible.  Already people are whispering in our ears, like Slugworth in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, to tell us where there are fruit trees for picking.  Yet, we don't have a fruit gleaning leader, and unless one emerges, the fruit on those trees will simply, once again, rot.  Will a leader fall from the sky, the way Rebecca did?  The way Susan Harper did?  The way Shawn Bard did?  (I built this site several years ago to help get someone going on creating a more "fruitful Dunwoody" or wherever it is you live.) If recent history in my city is any indicator, I'd say duck under a tarp when you're walking outside for the next few weeks!

As Laura Freeman Hines, the new head of Team Compost at the Dunwoody Community Garden, gathered up the rotten pears to add to the new bins she and her husband, Jim, built, so that they could become black gold and eventually help grow yet more food for those in need, I thought of how our work is never really done.  And now our job is once again to grow not only food, but new leaders.  (I am done now with serving as a leader locally as my book is coming out very soon and I am called elsewhere.  This was my final hurrah.)  

And, of course, as always, let's try to help more people have a nice day.

 

UPDATE: I just swung by to see how the tree and the surrounding area looks the morning after the harvest, and I shot this 1-minute video for you:

Also, Tom Oder of Dunwoody Patch just published a very cute article about the gleaning event, which you can read here. Here are two great photos he took that morning.

1 Pear Tree. 1 Hour. 567 Pounds for Those in Need. Have a Nice Day. UPDATED

Sometimes The Hopes of Our Hearts Finally Bear Fruit

My younger daughter and I stood there and watched this squirrel, eye to eye, species to species, understanding how it feels to be able to just grab a piece of fruit on a hot summer day.  We found this squirrel in the fruit orchard that serves as the entrance to the new Edible Garden (which was a parking lot a year ago) at the Atlanta Botanical Garden.  Crop circles.  Row crops.  Espaliered fruit trees.  Vertical growing wall.  Outdoor kitchen and fireplace.  The works. (Organic?  No sign of it.)  There are terrific examples of what's possible showcased at this new year-round demonstration growing space.  Here--I shot it for you:

 

And although we couldn't graze our way through the gardens, we were able to enjoy the new Metro Fresh Cafe, where everything we used was compostable (but corn-based cups?  GMO corn, and farmland diverted from food to make non-food--is that good?)  My fave feature of the day?  The Brita "hydration station" for refilling water bottles.  Finally!  (Is Brita now recycling filter cartridges in the U.S. or still just in Europe?) 

Back at home, I found the first figs of the year hiding, hanging heavy on the bottom of my tree, and so large they each fill a teacup.  They are a good, solid month early, as were the potatoes this year, and as my winter squash appears to be.  (Butternut squash in July?  Seems like that's what's going to happen.)

On my bike ride to the post office (where I didn't find a bike rack, and was reminded of how riding bikes puts you at a handicap in our car-based society), I found the pear tree at the center of my city overloaded with ripe pears, again at least a month early, and I got to thinking about how I watch the majority of that fruit rot each year (here's what I wrote about it three years ago).  I got to thinking about the food pantry, and how if we could just get a truck with a cherry picker, and maybe a police officer to divert traffic, and a group of people to help . . .  how hard could this be?  We already have the big red buckets. (Here's a photo from our garden donation to the food pantry in late February--some weeks we fill five of those buckets.  How many buckets worth of pears do you think there are on that tree?) 

I shot this video, I emailed a few city council members, and, guess what?  Response (on a holiday weekend, no less) has been positive so far.  I think this may happen!  Sometimes, just sometimes, our efforts are fruitful.

As the designed pages of my book started stacking up, I nibbled a fig and thought, Yes.  Sometimes the time and the effort and the hopes of our hearts finally bear fruit.

Sometimes The Hopes of Our Hearts Finally Bear Fruit