On Being Present. With Broccoli.

Yesterday, I found myself in the country sitting on a blanket surrounded by fields of growing vegetables, smiling farmers, and seemingly happy farm animals. The sky was blue all around, but we were protected from the heat of the sun by the dappled shade provided by a nearby tree. I was drawn there, to a farm about 45 minutes away that I had never been to before, by the promise of a broccoli story. This fact was not even the remarkable thing about this moment under the tree. The remarkable thing was the shudder of recognition of being truly present. It happens so rarely for me, even with daily practice, that it is often a surprise, and the recognition of the presence pops me right out of direct experience and back into story mode nearly every single time.

You probably need the backstory. Why in the world would we have travelled for broccoli? My youngest son Hank has been interested in broccoli since a nutritionist that visited his old school told him to steer clear of broccoli that had gone to flower because it did not taste good. This one little comment sent Hank into an ever-deepening quest to find out more about broccoli. We have looked at every store and farm stand that we have set foot in to find broccoli with flowers on it. We planted broccoli and let it grow rather than harvesting it so that we could watch the broccoli go through its life cycle. And we have eaten buckets of the stuff. Hank still will not eat it raw, even after all this study. His preferred presentation is the "little snow-covered trees" (steamed with grated parmesan on top) that we have offered since the kids were all small, an enticement to the finickiest of his brothers. Those of you who know Hank know that he is a serious soul at times, and you will not be surprised by his quest or by the deepness of his fascination and need to understand this thing called broccoli. So, when an event about broccoli for children showed up in my Facebook stream on a farm I did not even recognize, Hank and I decided we just had to go.

Hank and I and a farm teacher named Ms. Karen with a kerchief on her head and a few moms and a few kids found ourselves at the Fat Moon Farm singing about broccoli, painting with broccoli, and harvesting and eating the stuff. Hank even got to feed some broccoli to some fat muddy pigs. The ducks in the pen quacked at us as we passed them with our white wicker basket of broccoli, and we were not sure whether they wanted broccoli or not. Hank, my rule-follower, told the ducks that they could not have any broccoli, because his job was to feed it to the pigs.

We saw chickpeas growing in the field. I have visited many farms, but I've never seen chickpeas growing before. We saw potato bugs in the larval, egg, and adult stage. Hank was very upset to see a baggie of the larvae hanging up on a pole, steaming in the sun, dying what must have been an incredibly slow and difficult death. Ms. Karen explained that the bugs were bad and were eating the potato leaves and killing the plants. Hank pulled me down so that my ear was on his mouth (he does this whenever he has something big to say but is feeling shy about it), and he whispered, "But those are lady bugs and they are good bugs not bad bugs." The larvae of the potato bugs do look surprisingly like lady bugs. Once we looked closely and he could see the difference, Hank was all about finding the larvae so the farmers could put them to the boot. The adult potato bug Ms. Karen stomped made a loud popping noise under her foot. Hank was not bothered by this at all.

We got home and Hank immediately had to begin work on a raised bed vegetable garden. We put a "rabbit-proof fence" around it, hoping that it will deter our neighborhood bunnies (and the giant turkey who is unafraid and visits our yard regularly for mulberries and to freak out my husband). Hank has explained that if the bunny is not deterred in this way, we will have to eat the bunny. He thinks it will taste good stewed.

But back to being present. As you can see, the default mode setting for my mind is not direct experience but rather constant stream-of-consciousness. At the farm, the moms and the teacher and the children and I were all sitting under this tree while the children painted with broccoli in place of paintbrushes. And I was fully there. And then I realized I was fully there and got pulled out of being fully there because I immediately started to wonder what was different? Why did I drift into awareness so readily when that so rarely happens? And I looked around and noticed that not one of us had a phone out or anywhere near. No gadgets or checking of statuses or blogging (ahem) or even taking pictures. No ringtones or texttones or alerts or alarms. Just some folks sitting under a blanket breathing and watching our kids make some art. With broccoli.

It was a great morning well spent.