Who are you?!?!

This Urban Farm Girl has an older brother. I've been told, on more than a few occasions, that we're like night and day. When people say to me that I should let cooler heads prevail, I want to borrow his. He's calm, deliberate and plays a sweet guitar. When I was younger I would have chased stray balls into the street just to play baseball with him and his friends. It was a pathetic yet wonderful existence, like I was everyone's little sister. I never had to look far for a piggyback ride, staring contest or someone to put Ken's head on Barbie's body (I was sufficiently horrified by this.)

My brother has always humored my adventures no matter how asinine they seemed. He was at the finish line when a 14 year old Urban Farm Girl ran the LA Marathon and I once devoted hours to cleaning the toaster oven (yes, I was that kid.) In college I became a vegetarian after a Spring Break trip gone awry and I went the vegan route for an entire year once. Since then he has always kept a veggie burger on hand for me at every barbecue.

So I am also that girl, the one with persistent pastime/project wanderlust. A recent conversation with the hero boyfriend made me realize that I've never collected anything. Probably because it required too much commitment to one enterprise with a goal that seemed to repel closure (says the neurotic academic in me.) All of this is why the urban garden is an exercise in all things I need "work" on...patience and dealing with the uncertainty of success (among others, let's be real.) I am currently marinating in both of these.

I admit it, there are days when I just refuse to water or plant. Even the thought of doing such things will make me cranky. On these days it's difficult to rationalize why it makes sense to use the limited energy I have after work to grow things that I can easily buy down the street for a couple dollars here and there. Then the people...

After preparing a glorified and inebriated version of meals on wheels with the hero boyfriend for a dozen of our favorite people I felt such satisfaction I must have been glowing. I used the different kinds of lettuce from the backyard to make a giant salad and the friends arrived as I was pulling chocolate chip cookies from the oven. Oh, I was on domestic cloud nine when my beautiful, Canadian ginger friend asked in sweet, sincere shock, "Who are you?!?!"

The home grown lettuce in the salad had friends concerned about people stepping through the sidewalk garden and a couple devilishly handsome guy friends have encouraged me to put up a little fence to protect it. There are even rumors about other urban gardens making their way into these homes, too. This side project has been giving back in a big way, it just might keep going. Wanderlust be gone.

Daughter, Sister, Friend, Athlete, Student, Believer, Dreamer, Follower, Leader...Urban Farmer.


One day I'll be picking bell peppers and tomatoes for the salad, too.