Featured Story

Jenifer’s Journal: Full of beans

Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm; it moves stones … charms brutes…[it] is the genius of sincerity.Edward George

Before I serve up something different, I have to dispatch a little love letter to my once-and-future most hated legume, the lima bean, for the uncanny enchantment it managed to shed upon the entire cast and crew (and audience), of the world’s most unlikely-but-likable original musical, “A Hill of Beans,” which flourished and folded in three magical days last weekend at the History Center. 

Somehow, Lisa Shaw — along with her husband Tom Hashagen — like a Brechtian Mother Courage with a generous dollop of “I Remember Mama,”  succeeded in cooking up one improbably tasty casserole of historical facts, hummable tunes, happy endings, energy and effervescent humor that, in the process, made comrades of strangers, performers of spectators, and a winning, watchable musical out of one crazy idea. 

Everyone connected with this phenomenon, from 20-somethings to octogenarians, ended up brimming with life, with laughter and undeniably, beans. Now that we’re Has-Beans (sorry) we’re loath to have it all end, so we’ve been staying in touch via a ceaseless succession of e-mails back and forth.

We all kind of fell in love with one another, with ourselves and the whole experience, which only goes to prove that “beans, beans are good for the heart …” That it also happened to be performed on behalf of a worthy cause, the Historical Society, was just butter on those beans, as it were.

In this time of COVID, when all of us have been slightly or savagely touched by a ruthless pandemic and sometimes feel permanently frozen in a defensive crouch, there’s one thing that is more catching even than the Delta variant, what Tom and Lisa have in spades and what turned “A Hill of Beans” into a “super-spreader” event, and that’s enthusiasm.

The Oxford Dictionary in part defines it as, “religious fervor … resulting directly from divine inspiration,” while Webster’s says it’s “something inspiring zeal or ardor.”  However you define it, it’s been in short supply lately. Maybe it sounds a little too close to the fanaticism that appears to be breaking out like hot, angry hives across the nation, but to me there’s a distinct difference.

Enthusiasm has its roots in high spirits, good faith, good fellowship, humor and inclusion. From my experience, it also seems to contain ingredients like willingness, openness, imagination, curiosity, risk and mystery. Maybe that’s what the dictionary means by “divine inspiration” but, in any event, I’m pretty sure that “anger” and “resentment” aren’t ever a part of the recipe.

Pardon what may seem like a sudden detour from beans but, in keeping with the high spirit of enthusiasm, you may remember in this column a while back I mentioned that my granddaughter and I were breathlessly awaiting a kitten from Florida. Sadly, that was not to be. It wasn’t the first time we’d been disappointed. It turned out that kittens were in short supply in the shank of COVID. But those setbacks didn’t dampen this 6-year-old’s enthusiasm. Hardly.

A week and a day after her birthday, we celebrated by striking out for the Southampton Animal Shelter, which is, in fact, in Hampton Bays (631-728-7387, by appointment. FYI: The North Fork Animal Welfare League in Southold, 631-765-1811, is also by appointment).  After an hour in the “kitten room” and great deliberation on her part, we came away with not one but two kittens which are, call me crazy (and there are many who do), the two cutest felines on the planet.

After considering “Fluffy” and “Charlie,” my granddaughter has named her midnight black one with the small white “moon” tucked high up on her chest, “Lexie,” and the other one, a smoke gray and taupe-striped tabby with markings on her little belly as intricate as snakeskin, has been named “Eloise” by my grandson, with whom I have agreed to share custody.

Now, these tiny creatures share with my ad hoc cast and crew members the fact that they, too, are “full of beans.” Scaredy-cats at first, but now, reckless and brave, they wrestle themselves into a living fur ball then rocket back and forth, up and down my long upstairs hallway, ricocheting off the walls, while we stand there laughing. 

The point? This can be an exhausting world to live in. It’s not surprising that we often feel jaded, even cynical, and our zest for the decadent pleasures of over-shopping, over-eating, and binge-watching, etc. may well be waning. In a world like this, “enthusiasm” becomes a survival strategy. 

Wherever you find it, catch it and spread it, and whatever it takes, stay “full of beans.”