Fennel brings us together

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He skidded his bike to a stop and kicked down the stand. Hands on hips, long gray beard scruffy and thick but not tangled enough to hide a smile, he waited for me to huff and puff my way up B Street. “The hill defeated me!” I said as I passed this grinning stranger. “Naw! This hill doesn’t defeat nobody. Whatcha got there?” he said, eying my bike. He approached quickly and took a handful of green strands emerging from the big basket of veggies strapped to the rack. “Fennel,” I said. I stared with surprised joy (and a little twinge of OCD dismay) as he shoved his face into the fragrant fronds. “They smell so good! It grows all along the streets here. If you want anymore, I know where to find them!” His smile was plastered onto his weathered face. I couldn’t help but smile back at this connection spurred by a mutual love of fennel, thanking him and wishing him a good day as I trudged up the hill, the sun setting over the skyscrapers behind us. “Hey, what are you going to do with that? Plant it?” “Eat it!” I yelled back. “You’re. A. Beast!” he laughed, legs spread wide, eyes lit up, arms in the air in mock surprise. I giggled the rest of my bike ride home.

My new home. In the city. (Or at least in a more urban neighborhood than down by the beach) Where I can bike and walk and meet and dream. There are five coffeehouses within a mile. There are shops with handmade pillows and soy candles and repurposed clothing. There is a nursery and farm stand just down the street. There are a dozen restaurants that source from local farms. Because it always comes back to the veggies…

Whenever I have vegetables visible on my person (or bike) as I traverse the city, people ask me questions, want to touch smell taste the bright green or red or orange poking out of my bag. I tell them I work at a farm in the middle of downtown. I work on a farm where philosophical conversations about the meaning of life and the value of death take place over the compost pile, where boys go barefoot watering the plants and weeding (it may be the only dirt they will have under their feet this week, month, maybe year), where a CSA member brings back a caterpillar she found on her lettuce so it can turn into a butterfly, where a young student tells me that if he chooses to get a degree in sustainable agriculture his father will disown him and he will lose his garden at home so can he work in our soil? Where we sprinkle seaweed and beet pulp onto the soil instead of chemicals. Where we grow food that tastes like food. Or just tastes. Period.

I went to the North Park Farmers Market after I offloaded the fennelful bag, refilling my basket with carrots, my mouth with tamales, my ears with the music of a brassy blues band. Back at home I turned up my tunes and roasted them carrots and sautéed the greens from my urban farm, I danced on hardwood floors and sang into the gray cupboards of the 50-esque kitchen. This is what I have wanted for years. I intend to nurture this life.

Plant a seed, let it grow, let it go. It may just spread through the streets like fennel, spur conversations with strangers, make you smile for the rest of the day.