I'm going to read you.
I've been writing these--
I've been writing these essays, and I'm
calling them "delights," and I'm going to read you one of these.
This is called, "Transplanting."
Today I have smuggled three fig cuttings
onto a flight-- their essayette-- someone named
them essayettes.
Little essays.
Today I smuggled three fig cuttings
onto a flight from Philadelphia to Detroit.
Truth be told, no smuggling has occurred
given as I was carrying the things open and notorious
in a plastic bag.
The roots were themselves in a plastic bag, stuck
into some moist compost and leaves.
But smuggling makes the act feel a bit more thrilling than what
it seems, carrying a few sticks in a bag,
and therefore more like what it is,
cloning a living creature for replanting
about 700 miles away.
Which you might have already gone there,
given as I've told you already it's a fig tree,
is another way of saying I'm carrying joy around in my bag.
Actually, right now it's in the overhead compartment
in that plastic bag, probably a little funky
with my dirty clothes.
This is one of those delights that keeps piling up,
giving us the fig tree I took these cuttings from--
don't forget the living things in my plastic bag up top--
which is firmly established, and easily my heart height
in my partner's mother's backyard in French town New
Jersey, is from a grove of figs a bit further
down the Delaware in Langhorne, Pennsylvania,
where my dear friend Jay's family lived,
and where his father grew a wonderful garden,
including bitter melon, Asian pears, peaches, ong choi,
and, yes, these figs.
When I first asked if I could transplant some of his figs,
he was moving and I was heartbroken
that that garden would no longer be a sanctuary to me.
He said, yes, if he even said that,
walked me out to the grove of figs
beneath his massive chestnut tree,
and he picked up a pickaxe and started hacking at the thing.
I was a little terrified, green, green thumb that I was.
Two ancillary delights-- I have these long parentheticals
in these essays.
Two ancillary delights, Mr. Lao, old school, OG, actually
got a turtle, put a little hole in the turtle shell,
tied a string to a nut about the hole size, which he then
dropped into that hole, tying the other end of the string
to a stick in the middle of his lettuces
so that he could have a steady, if coerced, slug patrol.
That's not the delight.
The delight is that his son, my pal Jay, under cover of night,
dislodged the nut from the shell,
carried the critter on his bike, one-handed, no helmet,
to a nearby tributary of Neshaminy
Creek, the little thing's River Jordan.
Ancillary delight two.
Perhaps with a twinge of irony, when
people say they have a black thumb, meaning they can't
grow anything, I say, hmm.
Then we stuck the cuttings in bucket full of water,
and he did in fact tell me not to let them dry out.
Yesterday, when I dug these ones up,
I used a shovel and hacked at the roots like Mr. Lao,
though I was sending soothing mind beams to the tree
as I did so, which I'm guessing Mr. Lao was not-- reference
aforementioned turtle tail.
After I got a few good cuttings, I
like shoots that are connected to a larger well
rooted piece of wood, I took them
to the bucket near the house, filled it up, dropped them
in to the bucket near the hose, filled it up, dropped them in,
and showered and dressed for the funeral
of a beloved 20-year-old child, named
Rachel, who fell to her death a few nights ago.
When my partner told me over the phone about Rachel's death,
she said while we were talking, the two butterflies
alighted on the butterfly bush we had just planted.
When we were standing in the back corner of the funeral home
during the eulogies, I moved there
because I'm tall and called Stephanie over
so we can listen together.
Stephanie caught sight of a little silver gleaming
thing on the ground.
When the eulogy was over, she picked it up.
A single elephant earring.
Elephants were Rachel's favorite animal.
She adored them.
When we got home, after the pizza
and guacamole-- my guacamole, a delight.
Another delight-- here's the recipe--
avocado, onion, garlic salt. That's it.
Really.
I grabbed the bucket, trimmed the little trees into sticks,
potted them in the plastic bags, and set them on the counter
where they sat there like promises, little converters,
little dreamers of coming back into bloom,
and how we might carry that with us wherever we go.