Potted Basil

A grad school friend of mine commented at Thanksgiving that he was going home – but wasn't sure what that meant anymore.

This year I had a small garden in the side yard. I raised basil and tomatoes. Since I'm a believer that one can never have too much fresh basil, in addition to the garden, I planted one basil seedling in a terracotta pot and set it out by the car port. The natural home for a basil is in the ground. The basil in the garden did quite well, as basil is somewhere between grass and dandelions in terms of being able to survive neglect. Being firmly rooted in the ground, it is able to tap the natural nutrients and water around it – giving it a marked advantage over the isolated life of a potted brother. The potted basil went through gyrations of looking perky and bright, and limp and curled up into a horticultural fetal position depending on whether I remembered to water it or not. But it survived the summer none-the-less, and actually yielded some very nice leaves that had a richer taste than the ones in the garden.

Just before Thanksgiving (you can see I'm behind in my blogging) I brought the potted basil inside and set it by our kitchen sink. I'm a firm believer in raising basil if only for the benefit that when you touch the plant, it lets off such a wonderful aroma. The whole room fills with the promise of spaghetti sauce or tomatoes and fresh mozzarella.

In early December we had our first hard freeze and the garden basil died. The leaves turned yellow and fell off, and the stocks turned brown.

Sometimes I wonder what life would have been like to grow up in the same house in the same town, go to the same schools, and then get a job and raise a family in that same town, close to parents and friends. It's easy to mock such an existence as a simple one – but there's a richness to such a life. You know where everything is, you know the best place to get a cup of coffee, which garage is going to actually fix the knock in your engine, and which grocery store has the best price for milk, and which for meat. The physical reality becomes overlaid with an emotional and historical significance. Behind that building you stole your first kiss. On that corner you took the worst beating of your life. She broke up with you when you called her on that pay phone by the snack bar. It was on that bench that you asked her to marry you, and she said yes. The names in the graveyard mean something to you. And this is a source of strength. The danger is when the freeze comes.

Some of us were born potted. At the mid-way point, I have to take my socks off to count the number of times I have moved, and I'm about out of toes. But people are more like basil than orchids I think (or maybe dandelions, depending on who you're talking about). I've dragged my family through 10 moves in the last sixteen years in the Army. My oldest, at 11, has lived in 6 different states. Our roots don't run too deep anywhere. Where is home? When you're a nomad, it's wherever your pot lands. You learn a little, live a little, and with luck you land next to a sink where someone can remember to water you regularly. You put those experiences in your pot, and you get ready to move on again.