BLIGHT

Hello, friends. Thank you for joining me here.

2023 was the first year I tried growing a vegetable garden. A very experienced friend, from whom I sought advice, off-handedly noted on my list of desired crops that some of them, of course, I would “start from seed.” I would?? I…would. And so it began.

Despite the fact that I was actually out of town, half a country away, for 7 weeks of the growing season that first year, my garden flourished. I hired a wonderful young person to water, but I certainly wasn’t in a position to micromanage her work. It was actually one of the most delightful reveals of my adult life to drive the 19 hours back to the farm after my closing performance to find that the tiny seedlings I had nervously placed in our raised beds, which dwarfed them, had not only survived, but were stretching in wild, tangled jungles of criss-crossed vitality. They soared up and over one another, some reaching out and grazing the earth below the 3 foot high beds, as if to say, “Mom, look at meeeeee!!!”

I spent that August flushed with success, and tomatoes. Every day, once they began to ripen, I would go out to the garden and treasure hunt. Since the vines had gone rogue without me there to stake them up like you are supposed to, my daily harvest was athletic. I crouched and reached, twisted and ducked, plucked and catapulted my way to tomato heaven. Pounds and pounds every day. In BLTs, marinaras, salsas, pastas, pizza sauces, bruschettas, bloody Marys, soups, salads, jams, and scrambles, they shone. Whether stuffed, baked, fried, sautéed, blended, roasted, sliced, canned, juiced, chopped, simmered, or bitten into like an apple, they tasted like miracles. How in the world had I—an actress who had never grown anything—taken a handful of tiny seeds and turned them into SO MUCH FOOD??

I actually wanted to figure that out. First, it must be said that ignorance is most definitely bliss in some departments. For me specifically, in the “Everything That Can Go Wrong” Department. Sometimes bravery is just not knowing yet that something is supposed to be hard. My friend put a little asterisk on my veg list that said, “ *start from seed,” so I did. I did not question. I mean, she was the expert, right? She didn’t seem to think I would be unable to accomplish the seed starting, so I just…took her word for it. Second, I knew enough to know that with the number of deer and rabbits and groundhogs we have, the garden had to have a tall fence, and the raised beds had to be well off the ground. Gratefully, my husband made those things happen. I also knew we needed good soil. I asked our beekeeper friend if he knew where I could get some, and we lucked out with both availability and quality on that first dirt delivery. And of course, I give a lot of credit to Eve, the young woman who watered a few times a week while I was gone. Upon my return, I thanked and complimented her, and she explained that while watering, she talked to the plants. Duly noted. All of these steps put together had equaled success—and best of all, they seemed repeatable.

Capitalizing on the joys of 2023, I expanded the garden in 2024. We built two additional beds, and I started well over 100 tomato plants inside, along with peppers, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, parsley, lettuces, marigolds and several other types of flowers. With all those tomatoes, I figured I’d keep the strongest plants and give the others away. I added a fan, additional heat mats, and better grow lights to my seed starting set up. I joined online gardening groups and read lots of tips. I was certain that all of this new knowledge and all of my new skills and equipment would result in an even higher yield than my blockbuster inaugural season. That first garden year had taught me something: if you plant it, it will grow…

You know where I’m going now, right? Yeah. Here we go…If you can, take your mind back to the weather we had in the spring of 2024. Can you remember it? How about the summer—do you recall the rains, the mildness, the winds? I barely watered at all because our rain was so frequent. I thought it was a gift! I thought I was saving valuable well water—and more valuable time. By Midsummer, the garden was absolutely thriving!! The tomatoes were coming in strong, with copious fruit set on each plant. I had cheated a little and squeezed in more tomato plants in each bed than was recommended. I was greedy for all the new varieties I’d procured. My mouth watered as I imagined my first bite of the first ripe globe of summer. Delighted to once again be wearing my invisible, but pleasantly heavy, Crown of Tomato Glory, I floated through most of July. As the month waned, my daughter and I headed out of town for a few days to see my husband perform as Billy Flynn in the musical Chicago at a summer theatre several hours away. While we were gone, it rained more, and I considered that such a lucky stroke: Mother Nature taking care of things while Tomato Queen took a break.

Well.

When we returned, some of the tomato leaves had small spots. Hmmm. That was different. There was some yellowing. I scratched my head as the crown began to tip… But there were SO many beautiful, huge, green tomatoes on the vines, on track to ripen and delight. I quietly pulled off the bad leaves and proceeded into August. And then, it spread. I began to read everything I could find about the symptoms. I felt ill. I could not believe the advice I found: throw all the plants out!? Do not eat the fruit!?! You cannot plant tomatoes again for 4 years!?!?! WTF?!?!!! We had blight. It started small, but it moved like cancer, affecting almost every tomato plant in the garden by the end. It was technically Early Blight, which is, apparently, slightly better that Late Blight. We were able to pick some tomatoes that had no signs of the disease, clean them with soap and a vinegar dip, and eat them ASAP. Some of the plants (especially the cherry varieties) fought the good fight longer and gave us small yields. But, expert advice was to not can any of them and to not freeze them, nor any recipes made with them, because the acid in a tomato with blight is altered and that will affect preservation. All the food I’d planned, worked for, expected? Gone. Every spot that showed up on the gorgeous, ripe flesh of my heirloom purple, black, terracotta, rosa, golden and true red beauties was like a knife in my gut. I started avoiding the garden. It had betrayed me.

Here’s the thing: blight is in soil. Blight is carried on the wind—sometimes up to a mile. Once it takes hold, there is no cure. It’s fatal. And it STAYS. It will rear it’s all-consuming, hideous head for up to 4 years. Experts advise not attempting to grow anything that is susceptible to blight, which includes tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, and fruit trees in the same area for those 4 years.

Every joy that the garden had brought me in 2023 turned into utter and total depression in 2024. Even the things that did grow well required me to walk past the Beds of Death in order to harvest them. There were plants that thrived unexpectedly, most notably Rainbow Chard, Giant Parsley and a volunteer squash of unknown origin that got bigger than my head and tasted like Fall Heaven. Even so, the garden, which I naively believed was a place where I would again find only happiness, became a place that hurt.

Just as I was metabolizing that knowledge in early fall, our daughter began the 4th grade. Our elementary school, which we dearly love, had gone through some extremely difficult challenges during the previous 2 years, including having to move locations several times. We believed strongly in the mission of the school, which is nature-based and student-lead with an emphasis on project learning, and we decided to stick it out—though it was not easy. Because of the tumult, enrollment had gone down. I know that families who decided to send their children elsewhere did not make that decision lightly, and that it was quite painful for many of them. By the time 4th grade started, we believed that the tide had finally turned and that it would be much smoother sailing from then on. We did not foresee that our school related tough times would morph from grown-up issues like unfair land deals, permit fights and historic grudges to kid issues like name calling, schoolyard antics and bullying. Although, the two are not so different when you think about it. The truth is, hierarchies and power plays are inherently human. Trouble was, the smaller class size meant that the number of friend options for our daughter had also diminished. The class of 15 was about half female. (I tried suggesting cultivating friendships with boys, but that was a non-starter.) Our child has always been a girl with big feelings, something I both credit and blame myself for passing on. I think that those big feelings sometimes made her relationships with other kids harder. By her own admission, she was not one of the cool kids. I mean, to me she was and is the most miraculous, creative, beautiful, life-filled, spirited, intelligent, thoughtful, kind, sensitive, open, generous, amazing child to ever breathe, but that’s just motherhood. All parents think their offspring are the most special.

Look, who knows what really went on between the kids. I’m pretty sure we all picked them up after long days and they each spilled their many grievances about rampant mistreatments and unfair situations created entirely by OTHER children while maintaining their own complete innocence and unwarranted victimhood. I can only imagine that my child likely engaged in less than perfect behavior as well, and that what I heard was only her version of events (frankly, part of me was just happy that my daughter still confided in me and wanted my advice, and I had no illusions that that would last much longer), but on those fall afternoons of 2024, I listened carefully and what I heard broke my heart. She told me that she was being called stupid, dumb, baby-ish, a cry baby, the “F” word. It is possible that every kid experienced similar teasing, not just ours—I couldn’t know. It did seem that a few kids (both boys and girls) used swear words, but apparently they didn’t use them correctly, which let me know that they surely did not really know what they meant. Still, it was awful to hear. Weren’t they all our babies just a moment ago? On top of the tough words, the students would suddenly pair off, or form new groups in unexpected combinations, leaving out kids who’d been included just the day before. Allegiances were fluid at best. That meant that there was no one who could be consistently counted on as a friend. I remember our girl saying she just wished for one person she felt safe with. She actually used that word. Safe. How can you hear that and not die for your child?

However, like the garden, despite the blight, there were some bright spots at school in the fall. There were good days when the car ride conversation erupted into happy, run-on sentences about how someone new played with our girl that day, or how a student with whom she was not usually close gave her a compliment about her handwriting, or art skills. And it must be said, thank goodness, that her academics did not suffer. She was not miserable every day, and things did improve, but there were many moments that hurt my heart.

Back on the farm, there was another group of girls that tried my patience and caused me anxiety: our chickens. We started with 9 fluffy, fuzzy, darling, chirping chicks. Weirdly, I was their mother, too. From the time they were 2 or 3 days old, I raised them, cared for them, watched them grow and change, and witnessed the creation and expressions of the hierarchy within their community. And I have to say, the balance of power in a flock of hens is pretty much identical to that of 4th grade girls. There is a leader—ours is clearly Beauty, our Barred Rock, who is actually beautiful and knows it. When I try to take any picture of the chickens, she is always front and center, photo bombing to be in frame. She eats first. She is always on the top of the roosting bars. The other girls run away from her and defer to her in all things. She also is the one who courts my attention most. She lets me touch her, lets our daughter pick her up. She shows off her bravery and too-cool-for-school aplomb. The others can barely keep up, she is so shiny. On the flip side, there is Ursula. She is an Easter Egger and she is not pretty, which she also knows. Ursula was named after the Sea Witch in The Little Mermaid. She’s a bit of a mess. She has gotten sick twice and had to be isolated from the flock. When reintroduced, she was pecked by the others relentlessly. When that behavior was at its peak, I went out to the chicken run in fear each day, dreading that I’d find her bleeding from wounds inflicted by the pack. Again, I read everything I could find to combat the problem. Over the 18 months we have had the girls, I came to the understanding that unexpected issues will come up randomly, and the fact that I try to help—even with my limited knowledge and abilities—is already a win. It was said to me, when I was struggling with my inability to make everything better, that a lot of people just kill and eat a chicken that’s giving them trouble. Anything more is really nice.

But, back in the less nice category, let’s return to bullying. It’s funny how many terms we get from chickens. Running around with your head cut off? Pecking order? Ruling the roost? Homesteaders with many more years of animal husbandry than I have must’ve used those descriptions so often that they became a way to understand all behavior, from avian to human. In any group, there are those who have power and those who don’t. Sometimes it shifts, but not often. With the chickens, I offer assistance to balance the social scales. I treat Ursula’s wounds, protect her from attack when I can, discourage Beauty and her gang of lackeys. Among my daughter’s classmates, I have less influence, able only to bolster my one little chick with words of care and a soft place to land after a hard day. When you are the caregiver, sometimes you are powerless over the fight.

Which leads me to my real point. I thought America could be like my garden in 2023. I thought if you planted generosity and care for others and thoughtfulness and every other “good” quality that we are taught from pre-school on, it would grow. I believed one followed the other, like day follows night. But, as with my garden, 2024 demonstrated to me that despite my or anyone else’s best efforts to do the right thing (granted, from my point of view), bad things can happen that you never saw coming. Bullies are everywhere. We can discuss ad nauseam how they were created by the broken systems which have taken over our American experiment. For me it is enough to say that what we thought our country stood for is no longer what it stands for. Between the internet and the attack on education and the corruption that comes with power and money, we are now in a pecking order from hell. I look at my chickens and sometimes I throw up my hands because I have done all I can do to help them have healthy and happy lives, and they still cannibalize one another and run away from the very assistance that could make all the difference to their existence. I listen to my daughter weep and cannot understand why humans at times insist on dominating others in order to feel good. Shouldn’t that be something left behind in the throws of adolescence? Do we learn nothing as we grow? And then I turn my thoughts to the garden and there it is…

Blight is in the soil. It spreads—quietly at first—but relentlessly. It was always there. It is fatal. It will affect the leaves, then the stem, then the fruit of every plant. And it lasts 4 years.

So, here we are. The realization that I cannot plant tomatoes for 4 years was overwhelmingly, viscerally crushing to me. Truly. It made last summer ache. I want to forget, to avoid the thought, to run away from the very garden that gave me so much joy. It has taken me time to find a strategy to enact in 2025. I hate it. I don’t want to change. I want the thing I wanted, that I believed in, that I worked for and held dear. But I cannot have that for 4 years. So. Do I let the garden rot? Do I plant nothing? Do I plant different crops and pretend that they do not taste bitter in my mouth? Damnit, the pull towards all of those is so raw and possessive; it is hard to resist.

And yet.

Despite the fact that to plant is to hope, and to hope is to risk, and to risk any more when your heart is already broken feels absolutely impossible, what else is there to do?

I will plant other things in these 4 years. I don’t want to and it pains me, but I have no choice. I will plant greens and carrots and beans and peas and chard and herbs and squash. But I will miss tomatoes. I will plant community and small kindnesses and connection and self-care and mothering and little good acts. But I will miss democracy.

Wikipedia defines democracy as, “ a system of government in which state power is vested in the people or the general population of the state.” But it goes on to say that, “under a minimalist definition of democracy, rulers are elected through competitive elections while more expansive definitions link democracy to guarantees of civil liberties and human rights in addition to competitive elections.” More expansive definitions…isn’t that interesting? Expansive means bigger, broader, with greater breadth. When we zoom out to gain a broader perspective, the bigger picture of democracy includes the ideas of equality for all. I never thought there were levels, but in light of the election, that makes sense. In this season to come, this next 4 years, there is only the micro: the smallest definition of what democracy can be. And though 4 years feels like forever right now, I comfort myself with one idea. Referencing American Transcendentalist Theodore Parker, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. famously said, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Let us hope so.

In the garden and the henhouse and the schoolyard and the country at large, I have to look beyond the blight of bullying—not in order to ignore it out of fear, nor avoid it by wishing it away, but because it is only in glimpsing our world with a wider lens that I can gather enough perspective to keep trying to do what I know to be right. I think I might be able to survive the next four years if I can focus my days on the small things, and my belief systems on the bigger things. For now, I will keep to the macro and the wide angle, tiny steps and great swaths of faith. I think that is some version of the serenity prayer: change the things you can…

January 6th is the day the 2024 election will be certified and the anniversary of the 2021 attack on the capitol. It is a day that, in our current America, stands for division. Whether it is division that leads to literal violence or just violence against that broader definition of democracy, it is not a good day. I don’t care who you are or how you voted, you cannot actually believe that if *either* half of our country is disenfranchised, things are ok. Our country is not ok. I looked at our January kitchen calendar, and saw two things listed for the 6th: our daughter’s first day back to school after Winter Break, and…Epiphany. If you haven’t heard of it, Epiphany is a Christian feast day celebrating the baptism of Jesus. It is traditional to remove one’s Christmas decorations on Epiphany Eve. Apparently, my Mother-In-Law was adamant about doing this. I’ve always felt so melancholy taking down the Christmas tree. The house looks so bare and dark without its glow. I get used to all that light and when it’s gone, everything feels sad for a while. Of course, the word epiphany has another meaning. It is to suddenly realize a truth. It is a “lightbulb moment.” If ever the two definitions were to be linked, I nominate 2025. On this Epiphany, this January 6th, the epiphany for me is the darkness. The light will go out and the blight will come. How odd that inside the word blight is the word light. I literally just saw that, right in the moment, as I wrote…

Oh.

Oh, my…I see.

It is there.

It spreads—quietly at first—but relentlessly.

It was always there.