nature study: lead

On the brief walk from the bus stop to our front stoop, the children and I dash down a four-step concrete stairwell that cuts through a sloping jungle of weeds. Last time, the Hero couldn't be pulled away from these big growing discs of lots of tiny white flowers. "It was sooo pretty," he said. He wanted to take some in for me. I told him it would be better to let it all live, but he walked away sadly.

Today I saw the same weed in a picture on a blog and clicked through. Oh, I thought, so that's Queen Anne's Lace. Ah, yes, my natural literacy astounds.

Once I had the name, though, I was off. History of the plant, relatives that are native, uses, life cycle, legends. It's edible. I can't leave that fact out when I share all this with the Hero, I thought. I have to dig up one of these things with the kids, let them see how carrots grow.

Then I'll have to explain why we can't eat them. Our city is famous for its horrible lead poisoning rates. That's going to be the hard part. Dear little son, whose name means 'earthling', this is dirt, the cells of your Mother, and you should love it; and never touch it because it will sap your mind of it's power, and never eat anything that grows in it, and leave the phytoremediation to the experts please. A bit of a mixed message. The Queen Anne's Lace is growing in a spot likely to have very unhealthy soil, on a neglected bit of land between a street and a sidewalk.

That spot is nearly vertical, not very easy to mow, surely why no one yet has this summer. I'm sure the city will come through with a weedwacker soon. We need to get out there tomorrow morning for this nature study lesson. One of the downsides to urban naturalism is that people are always destroying things just for the crime of thriving. It's like we're holding the rest of life hostage, insisting that it never grows outside the very small (two inches, grass only) strictures we give it.

I know I am letting my kids spread their roots and turn their faces whichever way the sun shines. I hope this crazy life we live is not a twenty by five foot strip of lead soil located half under a sidewalk. Now to bed, for we have to be sure to get out there before the city lawnmowing team comes by.