Seedfolks

“This has always been a working-class neighborhood. It’s like a cheap hotel—you stay until you’ve got enough money to leave.”

Ana’s observation of the neighborhood’s transience helps illustrate why Overcoming Separation With a Shared Purpose is a particular challenge for this community. A neighborhood in which people arrive and leave quickly poses obstacles to making lasting connections and identifying common goals and aspirations.

“I hacked and dug but didn’t find anything except for a large white bean. I tried a new spot and found another, than a third. Then the truth of it slapped me full in the face. I said to myself, ‘What have you done?’ Two beans had roots. I knew I’d done them harm. I felt like I’d read through her secret diary and had ripped out a page without meaning to. I laid those beans right back in the ground as gently as sleeping babies. Then I patted the soil as smooth as could be.”

The simile likening the beans to “sleeping babies” and the passage’s gentle parental imagery develop the theme of Nurturing as an Act of Faith and Healing. Caring for the beans helps Ana resolve her inner conflicts of loneliness and separation from family.

“Out of nowhere the words from the Bible came into my head: ‘And a little child shall lead them.’ I didn’t know why at first. Then I did. There is plenty about my life I can't change. Can’t bring back the dead to life on this earth. Can’t make the world loving and kind. Can’t change myself into a millionaire. But a patch of ground in this trashy lot—I can change that.”

The biblical quote is the first intimation that Fleischman’s novella is patterned on instructive parables; it primes the reader to be on the lookout for subtler connections. This allusion builds on the connection between faith and gardening, as the garden reminds Wendell that his actions matter.

“Tίo Juan was the oldest man in his Pueblo. But here he became a little baby. He’d been a farmer, but here he couldn’t work. He couldn’t sit out in the plaza and talk—there aren’t any plazas here, and if you sit out in public some gang driving by might use you for target practice. He couldn’t understand TV. So he wandered about the apartment all day, in and out of rooms talking to himself, just like a kid in diapers.”

Fleischman uses irony to elicit empathy for the struggles and setbacks immigrants face. Though he is wise and worthy of respect and dignity, Tίo Juan appears as a helpless child to Gonzalo because he cannot contribute to the household and only Gonzalo’s mother can understand his words.

“Watching him carefully sprinkling them into the troughs he’d made, I realized that I didn’t know anything about growing food and that he knew everything. I stared at his busy fingers, then his eyes. They were focused, not far away or confused. He’d changed from a baby back into a man.”

Tίo Juan regains his dignity by showing Gonzalo a new side of himself. Not only does Tίo Juan become a man, but in tapping into his own sense of wonder, Gonzalo can also once again be a boy, the garden facilitating shared growth and acceptance of each other.

“You can’t measure the distance between my block and City Hall in miles.”

Leona’s dry wit reveals the casual disregard and neglect that pose another barrier toward community in the Gibb Street neighborhood. Though close to the city’s administrative center, the neighborhood is not treated as part of the city.

“When people talk to you on the phone, you’re nothing but a voice. And when you’re on hold you’re not even that. I had to make myself real to ‘em.”

Like the city officials who have no regard for the neighborhood, Gibb Street’s residents have little sense of themselves as real and worthwhile. The garden, with its communal space and shared goal, provides a venue for each resident to become “real” to the others.

“Squatting there in the cool of the evening, planting our seeds, a few other people working, a robin singing out strong all the while, it seemed to me that we were in truth in Paradise, a small garden of Eden. In the Bible, though, there’s a river in Eden. Here, we had none. Not even a spigot anywhere close by. Nothing.”

The biblical allusion to the Garden of Eden—a place of perfect happiness and harmony—suggests that the garden could become something much greater than it seems. Because Sam can see its potential, he is willing to work to overcome the flaws.

“God, who made Eden, also wrecked the tower of Babel by dividing people. From paradise, the garden was turning back into Cleveland.”

The allusion to the Tower of Babel lends a cautionary tone and instructive message to Sam’s monologue. Though he can see the garden’s potential, Sam understands that unless others see the flaws and work to overcome them, the garden will not solve the deeper issues facing the neighborhood.

“That lettuce was like having a new baby in the family. And I was like its mother.”

Virgil’s simile creates a clear image of nurturing—of the hard work, care, and attention a garden requires. What Virgil felt would be an easy path tests Virgil’s faith that hard work always pays dividends.

“I couldn't believe it. I stomped outside. I could feel that eighteen-speed slipping away. I was used to seeing kids lying and making mistakes, but not grown-ups. I was mad at my father. Then I sort of felt sorry for him.”

The moment he sees that the lettuce has not prospered fills Virgil with despair, indicating that the frustrations of creating community may feel insurmountable. He believes his father is being punished for lying to Miss Fleck. As Virgil digs deeper into his faith, he finds empathy for his father. Faith and perseverance, the novel suggests, are equally necessary in both gardening and in community building.

“I listen to voices. Feel very safe. Then man walk over and ask about peppers. I grow hot peppers, like in Korea. First time that someone talk to me. I was so glad, have trouble talking.”

For Sae Young, the garden offers safety and a way to heal from her fear of people. The sheltered space provides a way for her to overcome both her fear and her isolation.

“Someone bring three old pots to scoop water out of cans. Hard to pour into narrow containers. I quick go to store. Buy three funnels to make much easier filling containers. I put one by each garbage can. That day I see man use my funnel. Then woman. Then many people. Feel very glad inside. Feel part of garden. Almost like family.”

Sae Young’s contributions to the garden do more than heal her own fears. By bringing funnels to help the gardeners access water, she helps to heal the fears and separation of the neighborhood, as everyone comes to rely on the funnels.

“This old man with no teeth and his straw hat showed me how to tie the plants up to stakes. Then someone else told me all their diseases. That got me worrying. What if all my plants started wilting? Or caught blight and died? That wasn’t any message I’d want her to see.”

Curtis’s first attempt at growing tomatoes is a success due to the expertise of those around him. Curtis’s tomatoes reveal that community support and a common goal bring more success than isolation.

“He was fifteen, black, built big—looked like I did. His face was banged up. Said his father did it and threw him out. He didn’t want to go back. I bought him breakfast and we made us a deal. I found him a place closer to my tomatoes but hidden by somebody’s corn so the cops wouldn’t see him sacked out. I bought him a brand new sleeping bag. I gave him money for food that week. Then I picked up a pitchfork for three dollars at a junk shop. His part of the deal was that if he saw or heard anyone mess with my tomatoes, he’d come at him full speed holding the pitchfork.”

Curtis’s monologue sketches out a form of social contract: a basic agreement of mutual aid and support from which all community arises. In outlining a civil agreement with a shared goal from which both parties benefit, Fleischman provides a recipe for successful community.

“What a marvelous sight it was to behold Mr. Myles’s furrowed, black face inspecting his smooth skinned young, just arrived into the world he’d shortly leave. His eyes gained back some of their life. He weeded and watered with great concentration. A fact bobbed up from my memory, that the ancient Egyptians prescribed walking through a garden as a cure for the mad. It was a mind-altering drug we took daily.”

Imagery in Nora’s observation of Mr. Myles reveals the nurturing power of gardening to heal not only psychological wounds but also physical trauma, such as the scarring left by Mr. Myles’s stroke. The connection between gardening and mental health and the fact that gardens’ healing powers were known even in ancient times frame gardening, like community building, as a natural instinct.

“Pantomime was often required to get over language barriers. Yet we were all subject to the same weather and pests, the same neighborhood, and the same parental emotions toward our plants. If we happened to miss two or three days, people stopped by on our return to ask about Mr. Myles’s health. We, like our seeds, were now planted in the garden.”

The garden still has barriers, but the shared space, challenges, and purpose make the gardeners willing to work to overcome those barriers. Everyone finds a home and works together to solve problems.

“‘The whole city shuts down but the garden just keeps going,’ Leona said. She talked on, how plants don’t run on electricity or clock time, how none of nature did. How nature ran on sunlight and rain and the seasons and how I was part of that system. The words sort of put me into a daze.”

Leona says this to help Maricela gain a new perspective on her unwanted pregnancy. Her observations hint that gardening, like community, connects humans to a deep natural order.

“It hit me that this system was much older and stronger than the other and she said how it wasn’t some disgrace to be a part of it. She said it was an honor. I stared at the squash plants. It was a world in there. It seemed like I could actually see the leaves and flowers growing and changing. I was in a weird daze. And for just that minute I stopped wishing my baby would die.”

Leona’s life-affirming imagery and emphasis on interconnectedness help Maricela begin to overcome her shame at being a pregnant teenager. Though she has enjoyed neither gardening nor its bounty, she gains faith that even she is part of a greater purpose.

“In India we have many vast cities, just as in America. There, too, you are one among millions. But there are at least you know your neighbors. Here, one cannot say that. The object in America is to avoid contact, to treat all his foes unless they’re known to be friends. Here you have a million crabs living in a million crevices.”

Providing a direct comparison between two cultures, Amir’s analogy illustrates one of the most difficult barriers to creating community. Fleischman critiques the American commitment to individualism and self-sufficiency with an unfavorable comparison of Americans to invertebrate scavengers.

“There was nothing else in the garden with that color. Very many people came over to ask about them and talked to me. I recognized a few from the neighborhood. None had spoken to me before—and now how friendly they turned out to be. The eggplants gave them an excuse for breaking the rules and starting a conversation. How happy they seemed to have this excuse to let their natural friendliness out. The conversations tied us together.”

Amir’s observation implies that separation and competition are not natural for humans but rather a result of cultural norms. The garden, being close to nature, allows humans to return to a natural state of friendliness and goodwill.

“Soon all the mothers were trying to feed him. How very strange it was to watch people who would have crossed the street if they’d seen him coming a few weeks before, now giving him vegetables, more than he could eat. In return, he watered for people who were sick and fixed fences and made other repairs.”

The garden has created the right conditions for the community to overcome stereotyping, allowing Royce to be included. Community relies on a shared goal, which all members pursue with mutual support for one another. Care is reciprocal and ongoing.

“My father called them our seedfolks because they were the first of our family there. I think of them when I see any of the people who started the garden on Gibb Street. They’re seedfolks too. I’m talking about the first year before there was spigots and hoses and a tool shed in new soil and before the landlord started charging more for apartments that look over the garden.”

Through Florence’s monologue, Fleischman reveals the instructive nature of the narrative—that the work of the few sustains the many for generations to come. Just as Florence would not exist without her own seedfolks, who had the vision and determination to build a better life after slavery, the community of Gibb Street would not exist without the vision and hard work of those first gardeners.