Lettuce, Red Romaine

You know it's time to get out when you have this anxious need to stay in, the sense that everything out there is too cold, too harsh, too threatening. Borderline agoraphobia? In my case, I put it down to a nose job. More precisely, to last week's dermatological gouging adjacent to my nose. 

Into every life a little dermatology must fall. I know it's no big deal. But being on the hypersensitive end of the human spectrum, a little Mohs surgery goes a long way. A pencil eraser. I would say that was the approximate size of the plug the surgeon removed. She insisted on showing me the hole, the red crater left after she had had a go at my face. There followed a light discussion of her handiwork and what we might consider next. Leave the crater as is? Or kind of knit things together. Convenient little crease there along the side of your nose to close up the surgical crater. The little scar that will look like a little fold. And then to get a close-up view of your skin being darned like a sock, facial flesh being stitched together like so much upholstery, well, it's all somewhere between humbling and unnerving. Not to mention the cutting. The body knows when it's being cut. And something in it cuts out. No wonder I've been tired for days.

Not that any of this is on the scale of getting shot in the neck. But it has reverberations. And at 63, the reverb hits harder, I swear. It's enough to make one hop in the van and drive up to the haute garden center. In these wealthy Silicon Valley suburbs, oversupplied with stockbrokers and Persian carpet showrooms, people have a remarkable capacity to pour money into landscaping. I consider myself more sensible than most. But not today. Today I'm feeling physically fragile, exceedingly mortal, and cost be damned. I am going to plant brussels sprouts come hell or high water. And the high water is coming. Rainstorms, big and cold and persistent, are sweeping down from the Arctic. It's time to plant. And I have returned from Britain with this obsessive belief in my ability to grow the winter crop of brussels sprouts this late in the California season. It doesn't make sense. It may not be possible. But I'm determined.

Somehow in the economic downturn the Roger Reynolds Nursery has produced an impressive crop of new prices. Things that were costly before are now priced at the brink of credibility. Thing is, there just aren't that many people around selling brussels sprouts seedlings. In fact, Messrs. Reynolds have cornered the market in Menlo Park. It's their road or the high road. And there are high prices on the high road. Something in me physically shakes at the knowledge that Trader Joe's, gourmet grocers to the masses, sold an entire stalk of brussels sprouts for $2.98. The seedlings cost $3.98 per pot. That is to say, one fledgling plant that may someday produce one stalk of brussels sprouts, but is nowhere near that point now, costs considerably less in infancy. When one considers the blood meal, bone meal, labor intensity and general spilkes that will go into this seedling en route to its harvest stage, the $2.98 Trader Joe's stage, this is a transparently losing proposition. Which, a friend told me, isn't the way one should look at it. It's the enjoyment of growing plants, she said. What is that worth? Never mind the quality, feel the width. Never mind the slaughterhouse scrapings, packaged as blood meal and bone meal, which cost as much as a good meal, the kind that comes on a plate with a glass of red wine. I felt lucky to blast off from the Roger Reynolds planet $175 lighter.

There's no accounting for luck. Just as I return from the nursery, Avery, my seven-year-old neighbor, is skipping down the steps from his apartment. Buffie, his mom, his right behind. I can tell it's been a strenuous single-parenting afternoon. Mother and son seem quite happy to help me get the plants in the ground. The skies are menacing. Time is short. To hell with agricultural practice. Blood meal, bone meal, steer manure, all of it gets layered and sprinkled atop the cover crop, just turned under by the gardeners last week. Yes, I know, it should all be mixed together, but that's just too bad. The rain is on its way. I've got help. This stuff is going in the ground, and the ground is going to be prepared in the most expedient way.

I guess that wiser, more experienced folk, a.k.a. parents, would have some sense of what a seven-year-old is and isn't. I think there's some part of the brain that isn't completely connected in kids. Or maybe it's connected to the wrong parts. I can't recall this, having heard the details on the radio. All I know is that Avery has two hands, two arms, and a willingness to get my garden in gear. 

What should we do first, I ask him? This seems to me a very generous approach, giving Avery credit for being a little mensch. Nothing condescending, everything pitched to the adult in him. Which, if I was to look him in the eye, would not be present. Avery's adult is on holiday. Ominously, his mother casually observes that her son hasn't been so jokey and giddy in weeks. Apparently this is a strain I bring out in kids. And whatever I'm bringing out in Avery is quickly slipping into high gear.

First, this what-shall-we-do-next ploy holds little interest for him. He is already jumping around and dancing and ignoring what might be called long-range planning. The only range is short range. I grab a pot, then Avery grabs the same pot, knocks it out of my hands, and we have a tense, teeth-gritted sermon on the fragility of plant life, the necessity to treat green things gently, particularly little green things with roots intertwined sold in tiny pots that cost four dollars each. Brussels sprouts, Brussels, Brussels, Brussels, says Avery. It's now hands-on. Avery grabs a pot, I grab his hand and slow his grabbing into extracting. How many plants do we have in this pot, I ask him? Avery tosses his head around like a punching bag. Bots, pots, pots, he says. His mother is making him lunch. I'm wondering if it's kosher to ask her to fork in a little Valium. 

Thing is, despite the hyperactivity and penchant for silliness, Avery has the knack of separating plant roots. In these four dollar pots, discovering that what looks like a single seedling is actually two or even three intertwined, is like hitting the triple word score in Scrabble. I praise Avery. I tell him that he is a very cool kid, that without him none of this gardening would be happening. He is now making his tongue flick like a garter snake. Gosh, Avery, I say, can you read this label? Lettuce, red romaine, he says. Lettuce, red romaine.  Lettuce, red romaine. Lettuce, red romaine. He is now dancing between the garden beds. I can't even get his attention.  Lettuce, red romaine.  Lettuce, red romaine. I respond. Avery is insane. Avery is insane. This sends him into an even more acute frenzy. Tom, my reclusive landlord is upstairs drinking the afternoon away, praising life for not sending any kids...and I am worried for the future of my tenancy. Lettuce, red romaine, says Avery, and now you have to say the insane part. 

I have him, it seems. He wants something from me, my contribution to the afternoon's doggerel. This is something to work with. The truth is that Avery's frenzy stirs up considerable feelings in me. Like, should I join in or cool him out or run away? How out of control is out of control? Is this 'bad' behavior? Or is it Dionysian frenzy? Are kids supposed to be seen and not heard? If so, what is supposed to be seen and heard? Or not? I don't know. 

All I know is that when it's over, Avery's mother Buffie helps me cut open two packages of protective netting which we stretch over the raised beds. There are predators in these suburban parts. I am one year older and wiser and remember last year when my tender young seedlings were mowed down like soldiers at Verdun. Never again. It's the black squirrels, the ones that have migrated across the United States to go after anything that seems edible. In short, things are wilder than they seem. More fragile. And with enough care, flexibility and hope, remarkably durable.