Searching for Asparagus

Spring is here. The days are visibly longer, and the sun is shining just a bit more often. The air isn’t as cold.

But time is slipping into meaninglessness. As this pandemic stretches on - I count 45 days of my own self-isolation - the things that bounded my time and defined it no longer make sense. I haven’t left the house for the grocery store in two weeks. We rarely see other human bodies, and are left with only projected images of their faces on Zoom or FaceTime for contact. It is all starting to feel a bit like a simulation. Like we’re floating.

Without the daily commutes and the walks to lecture, or the casual coffee shop visit on a Saturday morning, I am looking for other signs of time passing in a meaningful way. And ironically, even with the increasingly reliance on technology and the internet to connect us to society, I find myself drawn to older rituals and traditions of the seasons. The life-giving, age-old practices that have been replaced by modern conveniences.

I’m not the only one. I see you all with your sourdough starters. Your chickens. The seedlings of your victory gardens.

I’ve only attempted one loaf of banana bread (which Spencer thought as ingenious) and I have put a firm foot down on the chickens (which Spencer was ready to scoop up weeks ago). Maybe one day. We will plant that garden once we clear our land a bit more. But for now, I’m simply spending more time outside. I notice the hawks and the woodpeckers and the bluebirds way more than I ever did. I spotted a crane the other day, deep back in the branches along the river (my Mary Oliver dreams come to life). And I’m searching for asparagus.

It’s late April here in Connecticut, and we’re probably a bit past asparagus season. I likely won’t find any wild spears on my daily walks. Certainly not on this property we bought a year ago; the previous owners let the garden go a long, long time ago. But I’m keeping my eyes open anyway because these magical little stalks are a calendar of their own. A crisp, green clock.

Asparagus season in North America is March through May, so if you’re seeing it as your grocery store at any other time, it’s likely been shipped to you across a very long distance.

And did you know that it takes a new asparagus plant three years to mature? You can’t really harvest anything substantive until that time. You’ve got to plant the seeds, tend to them, and wait. You’ve got to show up, season after season, to check on them and make sure they’re doing okay for three whole years. Only after you’ve demonstrated to the asparagus plant that you’re in it for the long haul will it start to produce the crisp, sweet, lightly flavored but oh so delicious stalks we all crave grilled or doused with a bit of lemon and butter.

When the reality started to sink in of how long this period of social distancing would really last, and after several trips to the grocery store spent crossing our fingers for fresh produce, Spencer and I came face-to-face with how dependent we are on others to keep our lives going. Especially the food supply chain. We eat because of farm workers that are faceless and nameless to us, and likely long-haul truck drivers, too, because most of our food likely comes from California.

We’ve started eating less meat, and savoring every bite - and let’s be real, this is how it always should be.

We should know who grows or cultivates our food. Eating by the seasons should be commonplace. I grieve the fact that this knowledge ever disappeared, but here’s our moment. Here is our opportunity to re-integrate and live more holistically and sustainably.

There is one tricky question, though: with time in this state of flux, and this process of re-calibration underway, I have to ask my love-to-travel, love-to-move-around-the-world-every-few-years self if I am willing to settle a bit. Am I willing to (bad pun intended) grow some roots? Am I willing to commit three years to an asparagus patch? Should I slow down?

Maybe I should. The saint of journalism and living-by-the-land, Barbara Kingsolver, in her book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, shares that her lifelong commitment to asparagus has shaped her life:

From the outlaw harvests of my childhood, I’ve measured my years by asparagus. I sweated to dig it into the countless yards I was destined to leave behind, for no better reason than that I believe in vegetables in general, and this one in particular. Gardeners are widely known and mocked for this sort of fanaticism. But other people fast or walk long pilgrimages to honor the spirit of what they believe makes our world whole and lovely. If we gardeners can, in the same spirit, put our heels to the shovel, kneel before a trench holding tender roots, and then wait three years for an edible incarnation of the spring equinox, who’s to make the call between ridiculous and reverent?

This time of staying safe at home has forced me to slow down, but once the boundaries are lifted, will I choose to do so willingly? Would I be willing to cultivate a garden, an asparagus patch, a life with purpose and intention without fear as a motivation?

I think the answer is yes.

My search for asparagus is a sign.

I’m looking for commitment - both from others and from myself. I want to show up for something, year after year, and have it show up for me. Friends, work, flowers, food in a garden. I want to be tuned in enough to recognize that taking a bite of an asparagus spear is also a bite of the spring equinox incarnated.

A reverent commitment to the things I hold most dear.