Arugula Stories
The Leaves of Summer
Summer is a funny thing. The season brings us longer days and bluer skies, and yet it brings us burns, and bugs, and other antagonists. This year’s summer has brought us days hot enough to scorch the soul. It’s an amazing thing, this summer experience because it brings out extremes in us. Some of those are extremes of fun times, and some are hot, itchy, lows. Summer is a constant up and down of weather-related responses. Summer in some big ways, is a performance event.
What does this performance taste like, I wonder? And I realize it tastes like an arugula leaf plucked from the garden in the morning. I like to nibble on one or two of those, even before coffee. For at least a week I felt too guilty to pick too many, since the leaves were small and weak to the touch. Even as this summer sun wilted the greens on the stem, the arugula persevered. We balance our own responses to extremes in order to persist in the long-term. The plants are in it for the long game, too. They teach us.
A week or so later and the green is growing again. It is supple to the touch in the mornings. It is spicier than ever. It is the farthest thing from the version I get in the store. They’re more reliable, the ones in the package. This one in the garden, facing all its brutalities, well it has more personality.
Under extreme conditions of heat the plants in the garden barely grew. Now the plants are on the move, sprouting and growing all new parts and sections. You would have thought they gave up, but they do not. They’re a balancing act all their own, growing in skills that make them stronger and probably more nutritious. Sure, they go to seed a bit too quickly due to extremes. Yes, they bolt in directions that serve the greater good, but maybe not tonight’s salad bowl. Yes, I mostly think of them in relation to the human stomach. Waxing poetic makes me hungry.
Watching the garden I celebrate the endurance in the plants and I celebrate it in you. I celebrate it in myself! I celebrate the green colors and the tender leaves that waited through extreme waves of heat, only to burst forth bigger and stronger. From wilting on the vine to plump to the touch, I see a reflection of what it means to weather extremes. I see in the garden what it means to be alive. Sure, I have a brain and legs and thumbs. I have things the arugula doesn’t, but that doesn’t mean I don’t see some reflection of it in me.
What do you see bouncing back? What do the leaves of summer say to you?
love.