a plot of land, my favorite in the world
Earth Day musings on my favorite fruit... plus some updates
Hi friends,
I hope you’re doing well. Today I feel moved to write about my Granny’s house.
My Granny Eola, my father’s mother, lived in a neighborhood named Golden Gate. Golden Gate is in Chicago, though you’d be forgiven if you had never heard of it. Golden Gate is in the Riverdale community area which also includes Altgeld Gardens and Eden Green. I could be wrong (my mama will surely comment and confirm or deny) but when I was born my mother and sisters and I lived in Eden Green. These little neighborhoods are some of the farthest reaches of Chicago before you hit the city limits and they are surely amongst the most isolated sections of the city. This particular slice of the city holds decades of memories for me and for my family as a whole. My father and his siblings were raised out there after moving from the West Side in the 60s and my father still lives in that home. As kids, the chance to go to Granny’s house was always a welcome treat for us. There were many reasons that we looked forward to Granny’s house but chief among them, at least for me, was food.
My Granny was a wonderful cook. That is probably one of those things that everyone believes about their grandmother but I have the good fortune of being correct in my belief. My Granny, who migrated to Chicago from Assumption Parish, Louisiana, was one of those Southern elders that became lore amongst their Northern progeny for their native facility with all manner of kitchen keeping and ingredient coaxing. She was the only person I knew as a kid who would occasionally take the time to make homemade ice cream. For years I hated most chocolate baked goods except for her particular chocolate cake. Her house always smelled of a meal soon to come or only just recently past. I have never eaten chit’lins properly (shocking given my broad devotion to swine) but my aversion to the dish comes specifically because the smell of preparation of the food was the only time I remember Granny’s house smelling anything approaching nasty.
My Granny was also the first person I ever knew to have a garden. I wish that as a kid I had taken more interest in what she grew and how. The thing about losing people when you’re still a kid is that your adulthood is shrapneled with the tragedy of things you were never wise enough or old enough to ask that now you will never know. But one thing I’m sure she grew were strawberries.
Years later, when I was in my early 20s for a summer, I had a plot in a community garden. In that time I learned that the strawberries needed to be grown in their own beds so as to not overwhelm the other fruits and vegetables. I also learned that the strawberries, I presume because of their sweetness, were particularly attractive to critters and so special care had to be taken so that all the berries wouldn’t be stripped clean from the plant by non-human friends. So I presume my Granny had some methods of protecting her bounty but I do not know her methods.
The thing I remember about my Granny’s strawberries was how damn good they were. She would cut them up and serve them to us sugared, in water. To this day I still have an allegiance to strawberry flavors, in some small fidelity to my Granny. To this day I am also often deeply disappointed by most examples of the fruit that I eat. In fact, because of that disappointment I now eat many other kinds of fruits and berries instead of being heartbroken by a red impostor.
If you never had the good fortune of knowing my Granny and eating her ice cream or dirty rice or strawberries or fried chicken or anything else. You might know of our little stretch of neighborhoods if you’ve ever read about the environmental justice movement. That part of Chicago, is known as the “Toxic Donut” in the conversation of environmental racism. Recently I’ve been re-listening to a podcast that premiered in Summer 2023. This podcast, Help This Garden Grow, was produced by Respair Production aka the homies Damon A. Williams and Daniel Kisslinger who produce many many good things in my hometown and beyond. Listening to the podcast is… a really moving experience for me. The Far South Side of Chicago is not a place that garners a lot of attention in the collective psyche. When it does it is almost always negative. Despite these things it is, one of the most crucial places to observe if you want to learn anything about the true cost of the American project. The Toxic Donut has the ignoble distinction of being perhaps the most industrially polluted place in the United States. As a kid when we’d drive to the suburbs to visit family I remember the hills off the highway that I always thought were beautiful and rolling in juxtaposition to the funky ass smell on that stretch of road. I didn’t know those hills were landfill and in fact the culprit of the funk. If that were the only pollution in the community it would be too much. It was only one small piece. I encourage you to listen to the podcast and learn more.
The podcast follows the life of Hazel Johnson, a community organizer who lived in Altgeld Gardens and who was considered a mother of the environmental justice movement. Today is Earth Day which I did not know until today but given that it feels like a topical offering. The podcast is well done, thoughtful, and worth your time. Years ago, when I was writing my first book, I would keep a list of film, tv, books, songs, etc. that mentioned the Far South Side of Chicago. The list was not very long then and it is still not very long but it does now include my books and it includes this thoughtful podcast. Hazel is a true hero and I feel grateful to learn more about her and the organization she helped found. I am grateful for Damon and Daniel’s work and for being able to learn alongside them in this moment and throughout the years.
One of the words they return to in the podcast is ‘contradiction.’ There are many apparent contradictions in their storytelling and I don’t want to spoil it for you but I’m thinking about a personal contradiction for myself.
The sweetest strawberries I’ve ever tasted in my life were grown in some of the most polluted land in the industrialized world by a woman who migrated from Cancer Alley Louisiana to Toxic Donut Chicago and died of cancer after a career of working on an assembly line making all manner of modern contraption we’ve used and never considered where it might originate.
I think about this contradiction when I consider Palestine or Sudan or Haiti or the Congo or any of these places facing the spiritual and environmental disasters of war and greed. I wonder what these people grow in places where they are told nothing can grow. I wonder what poison they ingest so we can live in ease. I wonder what diseases we’ve given their grandmothers and grandchildren. I wonder what smells they smell that mingle the funk of death and the joy of a family feast and I hope they have far more feast than funk, though I know the odds on that wish are not great in this moment.
Anyway thank you for reading a little story about my Granny. She grew things on a plot of land, my favorite in the world. She was a good lady and I miss her.
Peace,
Nate
PS. Tomorrow is the official release date of my wife Alison C. Rollins’ new book Black Bell. You can click there to buy it. It is a book that is deeply worth your time in my biased but correct opinion. If you need further convincing you can find her recent talk at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute here. Giving a talk of this magnitude and polish only a few months out from giving birth is… worth much celebration. The book’s title is inspired by a machine of bells and horns worn by an enslaved Black woman who had the sickness of desiring freedom. May we all be that ill.
PPS. If you’re in the general vicinity of Baltimore this week I’ll be performing at the Blackbird Poetry Festival in Columbia, MD. This is only my second public engagement post-fatherhood so I may read some unfinished love poems and hazy new father feelings. Come hang.
PPPS. The baby is doing great. She’s sweet and happy and demanding. Forgive me for giving you no pictures or name, I’m sure at some point she will have her own burgeoning digital footprint like us all but at the moment we are being greedy with knowing her, given that we’ve only just met her ourselves. If you know me like that just hit me up and I’ll send you some photos.
PPPPS. Today’s song from my my long ass playlist from my youth is Get Low by Lil’ Jon & The East Side Boyz and the Ying Yang Twins.
OK is there a more fun song from the early 2000s? Maybe there are songs that come close but there are none that are more fun. My most enduring memory of this song was being gifted a single of it on vinyl by my high school girlfriend (who relatedly has become an important voice in the fight for environmental justice and green transition). This song holds a million little learnings for me though. I found out years later that much of the chorus of this song was a repurposed version of a chant from my fraternity that these men no doubt heard at some point in the Black Greek heavy city of their origin. I also remember how the word “skeet” was at one point entirely unknown outside of the bounds of the young and Black and now when this song is played on the radio skeet gets bleeped out like a common swear known to all. I miss the days when you had to know a community to know its language and not simply observe it at a safe digital distance. Is it silly to mourn over language? Sure but I’m a poet so it comes with the territory I’m afraid. There’s more I could say about this song but I’ll end with this thought. When I was in high school I was a stupid elitist about rap music. I sneered at a lot of Southern music, not because it was Southern but certainly I was shaped by a culture that too often dismisses that cradle of Black life. Even I couldn’t front on this song back then. It is absolutely profane and misogynistic and and and this shit is a hit.
Oh my gosh!! Thanks for the link to Alison's presentation. It was phenomenal, intriguing. The question/answer session is fascinating. I believe your Grandmother would totally be down with the "funky Librarian". Your aunt idk. Alison certainly has me eager to visit her library. Great!!!
Eden Green, Altgeld Gardens, and Golden Gates are in the city of Chicago, but use the zip code of Riverdale, IL which is a good thing when it comes to car insurance rates.