By Anna Farro Henderson
We cut the peaches, cook them down and pour the meat and juice into glass jars. We collect the seeds in another jar. “Why do you collect the seeds?” I ask. I am working on a farm in Alba, Italy. In exchange for my labor, I eat meals with the family and sleep in a small trailer by the chicken coop. I’ve deferred starting a PhD in geology to find out if my true calling is farming. The Italian mama has to repeat herself several times. Her voice is thin. Syllables fall off, and the words are too complex for me to translate. She points at my hair, it’s dirty blond, but she calls it red. She tells me, “Your red hair, your green eyes, this isn’t what makes you beautiful. What is inside you is what keeps you living. That is your beauty.” She holds up the jar. “Il nocciolo,” she says. “The peach pit will grow a tree. The fruit will rot.”
Anna Farro Henderson (also publishes under E.A. Farro) has a book of essays forthcoming in 2024 about being a climate scientist and going to work in politics. She teaches creative writing at The Loft Literary Center and lives in Minnesota near the Mississippi River with her family.
Image by Africa Studio courtesy of Adobe Stock
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