Life is like a box of vegetables
Just as the pandemic began, I signed up for a CSA. I made a resolution to spend my money locally as a way to be proactive and support my community while staying at home, and a Community Supported Agriculture share fit this bill. Local for me is twofold. In May of 2019, I moved back to Chico, my hometown, after nearly two decades in Brooklyn. So, the two places are close to me, no matter where I reside. What I never anticipated was how this weekly box of vegetables would open up so much in me and help me accept exactly where I landed.
Moving to Chico with my husband (a native New Yorker) and our toddler daughter has been fraught for me at times. I was deeply invested in my Brooklyn community, and uprooting from the place I belonged has been a huge identity shift. I find myself quick to tell people I “just moved here from New York,” even though it’s been almost two years now.
There was a girl at my high school, two grades older, whom I absolutely idolized: Francine Stuelpnagel. I remember clunky saddle shoes and cardigans, band t-shirts and pigtails. Her family owned In Step Shoes (the COOLEST!) and after some begging of my parents, I bought my first pair of Doc Martens there. She had a show on the college radio station my best friend and I would listen to religiously to learn about all the bands that were to become our favorites—The Smiths, The Cure, Joy Division. Francine carried herself with the confidence of knowing exactly who she was and not caring what other people thought. It was exactly what I set out to become.
One thing Francine became was part of the duo who run GRUB, an organic farm dedicated to sustainable practices she started with her husband, and the CSA I signed up for. I even felt nervous to join — that’s how much the admiration lingered after twenty-plus years. But I did, and then I was set to pick up my first box and to reunite with this legendary figure from my youth.
I walked up to the stand, with my daughter in tow, buzzing with anticipation. Francine was right there ahead of me with a big welcoming smile on her face, feeding the town with all the grace and style I remember her possessing, though no more clunky Docs. The odyssey of life in this moment was palpable for me.
The cooking from the week with my first box of locally grown vegetables was charged with something new, perhaps a new consciousness. At hand were the ingredients grown in Chico, my old and new home. The air was thick with the fear, anxiety, and uncertainty of a global pandemic. In my blood were the mixed emotions of identity and what it means to be away from my beloved New York and a longing to feel creatively connected and settled in my new residence. Bubbling in front of me was a witch’s brew, a blending of my old world and my new world together. The resulting food was mindful, fresh, and delicious.
What I didn’t expect by being back in my hometown was having to overcome my teenage angst once again. I always had the mindset I would leave. I would go out into the world to prove something. There’s a lot of body memory in that. Now I am torn between nostalgia, this resurfacing angst, and the endeavor to build a relationship between my new family and my old world. It’s a strange dynamic to be new in town in your hometown.
Francine is still a legend in my head, but we are not teenagers anymore. Now I see her every week at the CSA pick up. We are peers. We are part of the same community of people just trying to get through this weird time while eating good food and not spreading the virus. That’s at once very big and very simple. New York and Chico hold two parts of my heart, and lucky for me, one doesn’t replace the other. It just grows and beats louder and stronger if I will only let it.