July 9, 2008

Zucchini Journeys

2008 1519 page27 cap remember this: standing on a dirt road, cradling a zucchini. It was a robust vegetable, the kind amateur gardeners liked to foist on neighbors. Its curved vegetable body was thicker and longer than my arm. In fact, my two arms together could barely hold it up.
 
In the photograph I’m smiling widely, nearly pulled down in the center by zucchini. I’m 12 years old, almost 13. My cousins and my sister, Sonja, stand beside me. We are a gaggle of kids, all lugging something from the garden. Our skin is a deep brown, our hair caught in a breeze.
 
After the picture was snapped we went inside for a lunch of corn and tomatoes. The zucchini, poor thing, was abandoned on the counter. The corn was sweet and crisp, and as we ate we kept track of our hunger. I consumed four ears, and that was something. I was usually a girl who took one bite and said, “I’m full.” Sonja ate six ears. One cousin had 12. It was summer and anything could happen.
 
As a child I loved the wild possibilities the season offered.
 
2008 1519 page27That summer, the zucchini summer, our family—two dogs in tow—drove from Texas to Canada to visit my uncles and aunts and cousins. Other people traveled to see things. We traveled toward relatives. It was a long journey of cheap motels and guessing whether someone was thinking of a plant, animal, or mineral. In Kansas we drove past soybean fields. In Indiana we drove past corn.
 
I often bickered with Sonja. We could argue for hours, wielding the rhetorical phrases “You’re so mean” and “You’re such a brat.” Eventually, my father pulled the car over. “We’re not going anywhere till you stop fighting,” he said. This was summer too, this sitting in silence, semi-trucks roaring past. I scowled my agreement. But inside I vowed not to talk to anyone. Ever. That will show them!
 
An hour passed and nobody noticed. The three of them discussed where to eat supper and how many miles we had driven that day. “I’m thinking of something,” I finally blurted out.
 
In Michigan we bought blueberries, enough to fill a cooler. Sonja and I placed them in the back seat between us, a boundary of berries. We ate until our tongues were stained blue.
 
At the border of Canada we stopped at Niagara Falls. We tumbled out of the car, stretching and clipping leashes on the dogs. Our main concern was finding a grassy park, the falls themselves an afterthought. Oh, but when I finally saw Niagara I was held in wonder. I stood at the lip of the canyon, pressing against the metal railing. I watched as water rushed toward the precipice and plunged over.
 
I don’t remember arriving at my uncle’s house; no doubt we were exhausted, excited. Nor do I remember breakfast the next morning, nor do I remember the next day. Memory rarely moves chronologically. Blink and you’ll miss it. Instead, I remember driving one morning to the farm my uncle had just purchased. There I encountered what seemed to be the world’s largest zucchini. This is where our journey had brought me.
 
Five years ago I titled this column “Journeys.” I was pulled to the word because I love to travel. I was thinking of extraordinary trips. I’d grown up in Uganda and Kenya, worked in Thailand and South Korea. I was hoping then, still am, to journey one day to Nepal, to Bhutan, to China, to New Zealand.
 
As I thought about the word “Journeys,” I became interested in its metaphoric possibilities. I thought about Pilgrim’s Progress, a book I loved as a child. To journey was to have a forward-moving faith, to have a growing faith.
 
After five years I’m still interested in the word “Journeys,” but I’ve come to see it as more nuanced. While we are changed by big events—the Niagara Falls events—we are just as surely molded by the zucchini moments. The trick is to be observant, to be present each day.
 
This July, what will you remember? What moments will you hold? Not a television show, surely. Today, turn off the TV. Go outside. Sit on the grass. Be still and feel the presence of God.
 
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Sari Fordham is an assistant professor at La Sierra University in Riverside, California. She teaches in the Department of English and Communication.

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