The house next door to my childhood home had a garden. A smallish one, but the man grew grapes and I used to spy the tendrils of vines wind their way around the trellis whenever I trespassed into their yard. He and his wife were retired. Everybody on the street called him “Frenchy” because his last name was LeClair.
They had a big family, lots of adult children and grandchildren. I’d sit on our back porch and watch them all come over. They’d sit outside and smoke cigarettes, the odor and their laughter rolling in heavy waves into our yard.
Every Friday, they’d make pizza. Now and then, I’d be invited over by a granddaughter and I’d watch the women pound the dough with their flour-covered fists, while others cut the freshly picked vegetables. Thick slices of zucchini and eggplant sprinkled with salt lay on damp paper towels by the sink. Tomatoes passed through the grinder, exiting as sauce.
My eyes were two moons, reflecting the bright, colorful display through clouds of flour. They’d call me to the sink to see all their garden’s bounty. That was the first time that I ever held fresh basil leaves in my hands. I lifted them to my nose and the scent wrapped itself all around my nostrils, giving my nose a hug.
There were so many other firsts for me in that small rancher even though I wasn’t invited to pizza night that often. The first time I saw Jaws was in their living room, seated on the floor with all the grandchildren while the suspenseful music played and people screamed. The first time I ever ate mushrooms was at their table. I devoured pizza slices with the topping, and eventually, they sent me home with a bowl of the sautéed leftovers.
Over slurps of garlicky fungi, I asked my parents why they’d never given me mushrooms before. They looked at me bewildered, unsure of the answer. My mother washed the bowl and I returned it later that night, the scent of olive oil smacking me in the face as my neighbors opened their door.
Almost thirty years later, I began my own backyard garden. The first two years, I had an extensive patchwork of pots, overplanting some very large ones with four tomato plants each. I had no idea just how much fruit a single plant could produce. Whenever we went outside, I’d watch my then four-year-old daughter pick the small Sungold tomatoes and pop them in her mouth. I’d remind her to rinse them in the outdoor sink, where she’d run with handfuls of the orangey orbs.
In the same pots as the tomatoes, I placed basil plants. This one with lemon basil, that one with Thai. Before the yellow flowers became ripe fruit, I’d bend to smell the tomato plants and get a whiff of the basil as well. Though I was steps from my patio, I was also back in that flour-filled kitchen, and the packed table, and their living room floor, where even when the shark comes up as Brody’s head is turned, I remain calm, smelling the lingering basil oil on my fingertips.
I taught my daughter to pluck the tender leaves and lift them to her nose, inhaling the herbaceous aroma. We hold out the bottom of our t-shirts to create a pouch where we collect plucked tomatoes and herbs when we forget to bring a bowl or basket outside.
Last summer, a local farmer to plowed a bit of earth in our backyard, and my mother bought forty-four tomato plants for me to painstakingly press into the ground. I bought myself two pairs of overalls, hoping to feel the part as our basil variety increased to six, and I fought all season to nip the flowers from the heads of the stalks so that they wouldn’t go to seed.
As I pruned, I’d watch my daughter drive around the perimeter of the garden in her pink electric car. She’d lift the large straw sunhat from covering her eyes and resituate her teddy bear in the passenger seat. And I hoped, one day long from now, when she has the chance to touch basil again, she won’t be too shy to hold the leaf to her nose. I pray she’ll remember these summer days in her own yard, picking Sungolds and running to the outdoor sink.