Magic

This week we built the first of six new raised beds in the Medible Learning Garden, the space where we grow medicinal herbs and vegetables on a plot next to Temple University’s Medical School, the locally proclaimed “palace” of North Philadelphia. This ultra-modern multi-million dollar complex stands in the heart of one of the most impoverished and deteriorating neighborhoods of the city, on a block where you can find health science students and people from the hood walking past each other and averting their eyes, infrequently interacting.

I’ve spent a year on this block and am one of the only students I know who can name people who live down the street. Tony often cooks dinner for his father, who is too sick to leave the house. Vicky has a fierce laugh and loves fried green tomatoes. Eddy is a Vietnam War veteran who likes to work with his hands.  It’s not that I have a gift of words or a superhuman ability to bridge gaps between two seemingly separate groups of people walking down the sidewalk. In fact, I can’t really take any of the credit at all. It’s some kind of magic that happens when I’m working in the garden, that somehow makes it okay to approach and be approached by people you would never otherwise risk a conversation with, and despite the iron fence that separates the raised beds from the sidewalk, there is a human connection that happens that goes beyond the boundaries that exist in the outside world.

On Tuesday I was drilling together planks of wood for our new beds, so focused on my work that I could almost forget where I was at. I was wiping sweat from my forehead and reaching for another screw when I saw a group of small children approach- eight sleepy sets of eyes only three or so feet from the ground walking outside in the ninety-degree weather, herded by three older women who were nudging them along. When the children saw the garden their gaze shifted towards me (it was probably the only time they had ever seen a white girl with a power tool). I never could have engaged in a conversation with them on the street, but I knew I could do it here.

“Can I show them something?” I asked their teachers. They nodded, and I stopped what I was doing and approached one of the beds that rests up against the fence. The children came over to watch. I pointed to the green fronds that were growing in the bed and told them to watch closely. I pulled it gently, and out of the soil popped a bright orange carrot. They looked at me as if I had pulled a rabbit from my hat as I handed it to one of them through the fence. Suddenly, seven other little hands were reaching towards me. They all wanted carrots. Talk about magic.

I pulled several more and gave them to the children, their teachers promising to wash and cut them up for them to eat. I found out from one of the teachers that the kids were from a daycare across the street. These kids think food comes from cans, she said. I told her to bring them back, and we exchanged contact information so that she really could.

I watched as the children walked away, still staring at the magical soil-coated carrots between their fingertips. I’m not sure which of us was more in awe.