Two years ago today, I wrote my first blog entry ever. It was two days before I began my summer on an organic farm, and I worried about how I would fare as a farming intern who couldn’t keep a potted plant alive in my apartment for more than a week. That summer, I learned how to make things grow and in the process, I realized a new passion. By the time the summer ended, I knew something had come alive inside me. “I hate planning what I'm going to eat for breakfast in the morning, let alone planning what I'll be doing come the spring. Somehow though, I can't seem to stop planning ways I can come back to farming whatn I graduate college," I wrote.
That fall, when I moved back to New York City to begin my junior year at NYU, my best friend Michelle gave me a fig tree in a pot. It was a gift she passed on to me from her grandmother, who rooted it from a branch that fell off the fig tree in her yard. That tiny tree was the first plant I was ever able to keep alive. Every time it sprouted a new leaf, I called Michelle on the phone and made her run up six flights of stairs to my room so she could see it.
Over the next two years, I found ways to incorporate farming into my life in NYC. I shopped at the farmers market. I started to cook, learning that all it takes is creativity and risk. I visited rooftop gardens and spent an alternative spring break with a group of students on a CSA in California. Michelle and I launched our own green business. All the while, the fig tree thrived on my windowsill.
I think recently, though, my green thumb has started to wear off. In the past few weeks my fig tree has been slowly losing its leaves, and I’ve been in a panic, over how I can keep it alive, and over how I can continue to keep farming in my life as I graduate college. No one expects an NYU grad to become a farmer. I was interviewed for an office job in NYC, and I considered, for a while, a more conventional route.
A few days ago, the first friend I made at NYU quoted Howard Thurman in her speech as valedictorian at our graduation. “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs,” she said. “Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” The last leaf fell off of my fig tree this weekend, which has made me even more sure that I should be doing the thing that makes me come alive. Next week I leave for an environmental fellowship on a farm in New England. With a little risk and creativity, it's time to begin a new summer harvest.
