Red Winter

Rouge d'hiver.  Doesn't the name sound cool?  Particularly when attached to a head of lettuce.  Years ago, more than I wish to admit, I grew the stuff in my raised beds in another part of Menlo Park, in another marriage, in another mood.  And lettuce, having very little interest in moods, burst forth from the ground in this way that is uniquely rouge d' hiverish, which in this case means leaves as light as crepe paper, extraordinarily delicate.  And, one must add, quadriplegic-friendly.  No one needed to cut this lettuce.  The stuff folded around a fork as though it wanted to be eaten.  Winter lettuce, red at that, and supposedly French.  A company named Shepherd's Seeds, all haute and boutiquey with a beautifully illustrated catalog, sold me several packets of rouge d'hiver, and then promptly went out of business.

Rouge d'hiver did not go out of existence, of course.  This guy Shepherd did not own the recipe.  There's still red, there's still winter, and there's still France.  So there's got to be this light, utterly delicate lettuce, so fragile that it's easy to see why the stuff is not available at my local Safeway.  Fortunately, in the almost two decades since I first planted the stuff, the web has arrived, and a quick Google search turns up several sources of the seeds.  More interesting is why it took me so long.  In fact, why now?  What is it about the rainy month of February in Menlo Park, 10 months after my wife's death that has me tracking down one particular lettuce?  I'm not staying up all night thinking about this one, but the question has snagged just enough cells in my brain to sort of work its way to consciousness.

René had them.  Rouge d'hiver available from Renée's Seeds near, if I recall, Santa Cruz.  Not that it matters.  Not that it registers, actually, for although Renée must have substantial ground to be raising and harvesting seeds, the precise location of her acreage eludes me.  Nevermind, for these days everything moves from screen to mailbox, first the e-mail variety with your confirmation, then the tin version, with very little respect for the landmass.  I am deeply respectful, however.  It's awe-inspiring, these cute little lettuces, once seeds as insignificant as bits of cracked pepper, now salad candidates, and you did it, you made them grow.  You are cool.  You with your rouge d'hiver, which all your foody friends gush over.  You're not just a backyard gardener, but a source.  You are the man.

I have a morning helper, a young former-Stanford man who has dropped out of making money and taken up the cause of Catholic Social Services which, courtesy of some exchange arrangement with Jewish Family Services, half explains why he volunteers to help me get dressed in the mornings.  His name, significantly, is also Paul.  On a recent Friday, Paul walked in the door on one of those sunny winter days that make one think of gardening.  So, what the hell, once the socks were on and trousers at a decent level, I decided it was time, time to rip open René's postal shipment of rouge d'hiver and sprinkle the suckers over the tilled earth.  So I wheeled to the door to the pantry and told Paul where to poke about in search of gardening hand tools.  And, while he was at it, might as well pull out a few packets of leftover seeds.  Which didn't take long.  And there they were, dated 2009.  Rouge d'hiver, two packets, one open.

And then it came back to me, well halfway.  How I had gone through the same sort of web search last year, found seeds, ordered them, and, I am certain, planted them.  And they produced perfectly ordinary red lettuce.  Not the singularly light, gossamer of a lettuce I had grown years ago.  Just a solid red lettuce.  I didn't so much recall this, as deduce it.  So Paul and I didn't even get to Renée's shipment.  Oh, it's there, all right, and I'll have a go at it.  For now, I felt obliged to sow last year's seeds just to see what would happen.  Why?  Beats me.  I know what would happen.  I know what will happen.  This is a small-scale version of the film Groundhog Day.

There's going to be a lot of this sort of thing, I can tell.  Like it or not, time moves in years, and things are coming back to me, painful and unpleasant.  How it was when Marlou began dying.  There's something about such an experience that is so overwhelming that it can't be taken in.  I remember at the time how poignant it seemed to be putting in a winter garden.  My brother insisted.  I wanted to do it, and he was going to help.  The twin impressions, trying to make things grow and trying to accept that things die, hung over the whole process.  The squirrels got the first seedlings.  Then came the netting.  Then came the spring.  In the warm days everything burst into life including, though I have virtually no memory of this, the rouge d'hiver.

So the memories are coming around, which is inevitable, and while challenging, not entirely unwelcome.  Whatever got missed the last time will get faced this time.  Something in me needs to see what happened, acknowledge and, perhaps, let go.  And so I planted last year's seeds.  God knows how many will come up.  But that seems to be one of the many mysteries I am probing.  And there's more to come.  After all, I still haven't even opened Renéee's package.  Maybe her rouge d'hiver will turn out to be the right one.