RACING THE BEANS
Memoir In Motion: Can Julianna finish the chapter about Delianouva before the heirloom beans are ready for harvest?
The beans have sprouted!
My nonna, on her first and only, one way trip from Delianuova, Calabria, Italy, to upstate NY, thought it wise to bring with her, the seeds of the beans upon which her ancestors have been harvesting, and surviving off, for more generations than even Henry Louis Gates could possibly trace..
Imagine the thoughts that went into taking up precious trunk space to bring beans across the Atlantic?
“What if we won’t have food in the new world?”
“What if they don’t have anything we recognize?”
“What if our soul needs a taste of home?”
I recently procured from my Zia, my own small handful of the descendants of those ancient varieties, and planted the small purple striped fagiolini as specifically directed by my aunt. “Use a spoon” she said “and make a circle, not too deep and plant 5 or 6 in a circle when the moon is about to be full. That is what Nonna told me to do.”
I dutifully used a clean kitchen spoon, even though I have at least 4 small trowels in the shed. Although I didn’t check the moon cycle, it must have been waxing because, after only 3 days, the first sprout rose from the soil like JC from the tomb. It flung off it’s bean-y shell, and beckoned me for a hug with outstretched leaves doing tiny jazz hands in the morning breeze.
The next day, 4 more busted up though the soil like Lazarus. It was as if the plant was responding to a sense of urgency. As if, deep in its DNA, lay the knowledge that hungry people depend on it to survive, as my family did for generations. Except here, now, in the land of plenty, the urgency is to feed another kind of hunger, that of the spirit.
The stalks carry an ancient robustness, the kind needed to survive thousands of years in the inhospitable terrain of southern Italy’s harsh mountain climate. The stalks embodied the same quality of life force found in the people of the area. The same kind of forza I am going to need to finish writing my memoir.
As you may or may not know, I have been working on a memoir for the last several years. I only have one chapter left — one so full of meaning and feeling and mystery and heartache, that I left for last. This could also be called avoidance. It is the chapter on my visit to the home land of the very beans I am watching grow, and my father who survived conditions there by eating them. It is the chapter on Delianuova.
If all goes well, by August, these unnamed beans will be well over my classic 5 foot 2 inch Southern Italian stature and producing pods enough to fill bellies, give away, and to store for next year's planting season. They are already growing so fast I am struggling to keep up with them. I don’t have the necessary poles ready, nor my garden box covers to keep off those pesky furry nocturnal visitors looking for a heritage variety midnight munch.
And by the time the beans are ready to harvest, I want to have finished the memoir.
That’s right, I have decided to race the beans.
I’ll keep you posted on my progress here. And hopefully the beans will keep me company while I explore the depth of my incredible experience in my father’s paise.
Thanks for reading!
I believe you’ll beat the beans!