Most of us have less dirt in our lives than our forebears did. And in some ways this is good: I'm not arguing that the world needs more tetanus. I think, though, that we're more squeamish than we used to be -- I think that's how magazines can dedicate space to articles about whether it's better to wipe in between the crevices of the hotel remote or just put the whole thing in a plastic bag.
I was thinking about dirt earlier this week when we picked up our next-to-last CSA share. After our first year I wasn't sure if we should sign up again, but this year I wrote a check without hesitation. It's been really good for me to see the farmer who grows our vegetables, week after week. It's been good for me to have a visible reminder of how much labor lies behind the food on my table, and how much uncertainty, and how much providence.
It's been good for me to eat what's growing over these past three CSA seasons. I used to be deeply skeptical of people who said they loved eating greens, because who could really love greens? I thought perhaps they meant "I love the sanctimonious feeling I get when I say 'I love greens' and thus by the transitive property I love eating greens." I didn't waste a lot of our greens, but it was an effort making use of them.
Something weird happened, though. On Tuesday night we got the most gorgeous kale in our share. Wait, gorgeous is too overused to convey the beauty of this kale. I need a better word, like pulchritudinobellissimous. (Be quiet, spellcheck, I have a point to make.) It had these fabulously rumpled leaves and this deep dull sheen that made me want to (a) pat it gently and (b) get it in my mouth.
(OH DEAR now you will all think I'm a weirdo, but it's NaBloPoMo and I don't have time to start over with a nice neutral post on "What are you cooking for Thanksgiving? Turkey? Oh, me too!")
Elwood cooked it up with some chicken thighs in an Indian-ish sauce. The first strange thing was that I recognized it right away despite the fact that it had cooked down. It had to be kale; couldn't be any of the other greens in the fridge. The second, even stranger thing was that I wanted to eat it ALL ALL ALL. Not out of guilt, not so I could write a sanctimonious blog post (this is not sanctimonious; it is weird), but out of sheer delight. It was like edible velvet-- silky with some heft to it. I picked out every bit from the pan and ate it while making happy noises.
(OH DEAR weirder and weirder)
If we were picking our own vegetables every week at the grocery store, it would be mostly broccoli and carrots and green beans, because that's what the kids eat. I do not think this kale enthusiasm would have descended on me under those circumstances.
I'm remembering a world in which people used to wash their own handkerchiefs (and share them with strangers in need as an act of kindness), and eat what was growing in the gardens around them, and have a little more trouble with dirt under their fingernails. And I don't mean to be overly sentimental or to overlook the things we've gained in the past 60 or 75 or however many years, but I am grateful for the farmer in my area code who is willing to keep on wrangling with the dirt.
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