Strange to go back to something that I did as a child at school. Finding some blotting paper left over from my days as a printmaker. Rolling it up. Putting it in the jar - well, beer glass -as this seems a more grown-up vessel for growing a bean for an adult to use. Long past my bean stage - in fact I have even grown two beans of my own. Maybe they would object to being called beans. Teenagers object to most things. Think I'll keep that to myself - stash this url away, like a porn site, so as to do my parental thing of protecting my seedlings from damage. Tender young things, almost ready to spread out their own roots.Climb out the jar.
Strange to think of them as beans, but why not? The bean is such an innocent object. It's hard, shiny, protective layer concealing it's tenderness inside. It's potential still dormant. I still remember the wonder of watching the jam jar sprout in the classroom - the speed that this little object transformed itself into a gangly plant. Reaching up and up and up. Roots tangling and enmeshing themselves into one solid mass.
Strange to find myself making comparisons between a bean and my children, a bean and genitals, a bean and a heart. What other parallels might be raised in the duration of this project? What other experiences be pulled up to the top of the glass? Can I untangle my roots?
