Elul Day 20
Dear Elul Writers,
When we were in Prague last summer, Casey and I happened upon a pair of plum trees growing in a public park whose branches extended out over the sidewalk. We were on our way to a farmer’s market, but were happy to be distracted by the branches that were heavy with the little fruits. The plums were small, just bigger than a cherry, and they glowed brightly like little red and yellow lights. We ate from the trees like two happy squirrels, filling our cheeks with fruit, spitting the stones onto the dirt beneath the trees. The plums were sublime– more sweet than sour with an overwhelmingly floral finish. We don’t speak Czech, but there is a universal language between people foraging fruit and passers-by; a shared smile, a glance upward at the tree, some polite giggles.
When, a few days later, we were considering how we wanted to spend our final afternoon in the city, it went without saying that we would head back to the park and eat again from the trees. This time, we filled a small plastic container with twenty or thirty plums, so that we would have a sweet snack on our plane ride home. Indeed, we enjoyed the fruit as we cruised over the ocean (each and every plum) and when I was unpacking my backpack at home, I realized that there were two dozen-ish plum pits that had come back with us.
A little bit of online reading confirmed my greatest hopes; it was within the realm of possibility that we might be able to turn these stones into saplings. I placed the plum pits between two layers of wet paper towel, put them in a small container and shoved them towards the back of our fridge. Now, all I had to do was forget about them for a few months. Easy enough. When I did remember them three or four months later, I was slightly horrified by some of the mold that had grown in the container, but underneath the paper towel, thirteen or fourteen of the seeds had avoided rotting and were sprouting little green stems. I put them in small pots, buried them in soil and found a sunny spot for them. Two weeks later seven or eight of the pots had small plum tree starts emerging from the soil. Now, it was not quite Spring and the plants had to live indoors for a bit. By April, only three were still going strong. I made the transition to our patio and one of the saplings didn’t take to the natural world. So, we currently have two Czech plum trees that have made it through the summer and are now a few feet tall. Eventually, we will plant them in the ground. Maybe one will make it. Maybe not.
I am struck by this winnowing down. Twenty-some-odd pits turned into a dozen sprouting seeds. A dozen sprouting seeds turned into six or seven starts. Of those starts, only two small saplings have taken root and survived the Georgia summer. We gather seeds, we care for them, but we don’t know what will bear fruit.
Prompt
We are all still gathering seeds, as we approach Rosh Hashanah. All of our hopes and aspirations, even those that feel too precious and vulnerable to speak out loud, they are the plum pits that we carry into the new year. In truth, we don’t know which of our stones will sprout, which of the sprouts will take root, which of the saplings will thrive. What the world will look like in six months, what our lives will look like, is unknown to us. Yet, we still do the work of tending to our hopes, and planting for seasons that are not guaranteed to us. What seeds of hope are you carring into the new year? How can you prepare yourself for the reality that some will grow while others will whither? Is it possible that, like the elderly Honi planting his carob trees, some of our work can be for the sake of generations to come?
Take care,
Jordan