Every now and then, I find myself becoming a weed. Having never lived in a place long enough to grow permanent roots, I make peace with whatever each habitat has to offer. Yet, in a world curdling with mistrust and parochial speciesism, the label of ‘otherness’ doesn’t take long to form. The parallels between manicured lawns, monocultures and societal intolerance are hard to miss. But weeds resist simple definitions, boundaries and rules. A plant in the wrong place at the wrong time finds itself labelled a weed. However, who gets to decide the right place and time? Weeds embody histories of a land, that those in power would rather have us forget. More-than-human scribes provide more authentic accounts. Species of wild Amaranthus, termed as the infamous ‘pigweed’ owing to its resistance to ever-growing concentrations of weedicides, is thought to be the bane of modern farming. But its resistance is a response to the poison poured over the land as a survivor testifying against the crimes it has witnessed. Its range spread in parallel to the application of potent weedicides. The irony lies in the fact that Amaranthus seeds have much higher protein content than other widely consumed cereals like conventional wheat, rice or maize. Many ancient cultures regarded the plant as part of their staple diet. Yet, here we are, an amnesic generation relying on chemical companies telling us what to eat by discarding nutritional crops in favour of animal feed.

A veteran farmer once told me, “There are no weeds. All plants are translating the language of the soil for us, revealing ideas too subtle for us to understand. What we call weeds are just hardy plants growing in starved soils and disturbed habitats. Given enough time, they can replenish the soil over generations of diverse planting. But who wants to give time nowadays?” I want to give time. I want to re-member neglected knowledge and relationships waiting patiently along the margins of farms and pavement cracks. I am not alone either. Wild, uncultivated edibles have been a staple for many indigenous cultures, even as the collective palate has reduced to a pitiful variety of grains and vegetables. When the pandemic revealed the fractures in the current food system, utterly dependent on fossil fuel-driven production, storage and transportation of crops, the broken system threw a new light on locally sourced foraged food. In my journey as an urban gardener, I am slowly learning to look beyond individual crops, and instead observe the ecosystem it occupies. Weeds then become companion species. Nothing lives in isolation.

Finding myself plunged into yet another new geography, my instinctive recourse to settling down involves long, winding walks wherever a patch of greenery exists. Often, the universe being an obliging co-conspirator, arranges for a serendipitous encounter with kindred spirits seeking connections. This is how I met G, a paleoethnobotanist, abiding plant-lover and exactly the woman I would like to grow old to be. Under her guidance, I began my landscape education anew, learning about the local edible weeds, and found surprising connections with plants back home. Kinship is not difficult to establish, when common grounds of well-being are established. We foraged for wild edibles, played with ripe seed pods that burst with the slightest touch, collected wood ear mushrooms, admired the natural black dye of fallen black walnut fruits, and created a shared space of belonging – a space where one is just allowed to be. These are areas of abundance lying in plain sight, despite our obsession with metrics of want and scarcity. Our preoccupation with survival seems to have rendered us incapable of imagining what flourishing must look like. It is time we turn to the weeds and rewild ourselves. The margins and marginalized await newer vocabularies of reciprocity and respect. How much more fulfilled we could be to partake of these gifts?

Deborah Dutta is an educator with a deep interest in the interconnections between ecology and well-being. Her work has been published in Humans and Nature, Current Conservation and RoundGlass Sustain. An avid gardener, she enjoys collecting seeds, stories and recipes. Her other literary rambles can be accessed here.