Eat the Truth

It makes me anxious. Terrified really. I don’t want this to happen. I want to shield them from this reality. I want to pluck out the evidence at its source. They may be the last to know even when WE ALL KNOW. We are OK with it. Sort of. We just skirt around the issue as we chew and smile.

But They may not be OK with it. They may not want to skirt anything of the sort.

They will be excited for the day the box arrives. They will come to town with high expectations, a rumbling belly, a head full of dreams of creation and nourishment.

Fwap. Fwap. Plastic arms open into theirs. They gently expose the contents of the mysterious black box they've been waiting for all week. They pull at curly leafed lettuce and poke at the smoothly wrapped gift of cabbage. They lift up the kale to find adorable peppers and a rainbow of chard. They pop a leaf of basil into their mouth unable to resist the memories of warm summer pesto evenings. They pick out their striped tomatoes and peach-colored watermelons. They pile everything into a bag or box and say hello to all of us harvesters sitting at a table eating lunch as they make their way back to their car.

My anxiety grows. I want to warn them. But I also know that this is an important life lesson. That they need to know the facts and I can’t be the one to halt that process. I can’t be the one to pretend like it didn’t happen.

They will get home and plan out dinner. Corn will be on the menu. They will wash the lettuce for salad, chop up the eggplant to fry in olive oil, slice the tomatoes for garnish. Then comes the moment when they peel back the husks and silk and find it gorging on their dinner. Their dinner! Excrement and sloppy chewing filling the space around emptied kernels with a wriggling monstrous worm sloshing away in his own doings.

They will drop the corn and scream. They will throw the corn out the window straight into the compost pile. They will root through the rest of their box looking for wrigglers. They will never buy organic corn (or anything else from the ground) again. EVER. The farm will go out of business.

Pause. Rewind.

These are sensible, CSA, farm loving folks. They know that worms are a sign that the corn is not sprayed with pesticides, not GMO, not dripping with toxins. They know that sharing with the bugs happens, that this sweet corn is delicious to a variety of creatures.

And perhaps they want to know the truth:

Corn comes from outside!

Corn grows up from the dirt!

Corn and all the other organic vegetables inevitably have creatures crawling on them at one point or another whether you see them or not. And sometimes that one point is when they go into the boxes and go home with you.

So why the anxiety? Because I have seen those who won’t touch dirty tomatoes and shrink away from twisted carrots. I have washed my fair share of produce going into CSA boxes to ease folks into the ‘veggies come from dirt’ discovery. But I know the time is now for the link to be solidified between soil and nourishment, that there are so many who are ready for the mental hurdle that bugs on food can present. And we are helping them on that journey.

I start to have faith that these folks will still eat that corn. That they will embrace the worm (or feed him to the chickens) and devour the sweet juicy niblets. That they will appreciate the reminder that all life needs nourishment and who (or what) can resist fresh September corn on the cob? 

I look down onto my plate full of salad from the farm. 

There is a tiny green worm inching towards the edge. 

I smile and let him crawl, the worry dripping away like butter off a cob. I am no longer anxious about the effect the worm in the corn will have. I realize I am actually part of the effect, a source of positive change in this society, thanks to this farmer’s honesty. 

I welcome another creature to our table and keep on eating.

Rolly poley farm

On hands and knees. 

Heads down, close to the dirt on the sidewalk. They sift through compost and perlite, peat moss and concrete dust. "Help us look for rolly-poleys," they say. 

I smile and join in, my fingernails far dirtier than theirs. 

I am happy to abandon the activity I had planned. It involved making planters: newspaper rolled around a can, taped up, sharpi-ed with a name of a child, the name of a vegetable.

They dug soil out of an orange bucket. One of the kids had found plastic spoons to use. I said they could use their hands. They didn't want to get dirty, they said. Kids not wanting to get dirty? I told them I loved getting dirty, that soil is good, that that is where all our food comes from. They spooned the soil into the little planters, chose their popcorn or squash seeds, beans or radishes. They made more planters, planted more seeds. They drowned their seeds in water, put them in the sun to grow.

A small boy with a mohawk checked on his seeds every twenty minutes to see if they were growing yet. I told him it might take a week. How long a week is to a kid! I miss that feeling of endless time on hot summer days playing in the bushes and trees in the front yard, doves declaring summer evenings, the smell of Eucalyptus and chlorine and barbecued chicken. A week was a lifetime away.

But the seed would probably grow in a few days if he watered it, I said. He could plant it in his yard. "I don't have a yard." Plant it in someone else's yard, I said, but knew this wasn't a good answer. I knew the roots would become bound, the paper disintegrate if he wasn't able to find a home for it in a couple of weeks. Would that discourage him from growing anything else in his life? Was I setting these apartment-bound kids up for traumatic plant-killing experiences instead of welcoming them to the fascinating world of gardening? Was I being classist and inconsiderate? Whoa farmer, I thought. Hopefully the adults in their life will step in and find a bigger planter, find a spot in the sun, nourish and encourage and grow. I can help plant the seed but I can't farm everyone, right? Besides, with all the hula hooping and glitter and bead art projects this afternoon, the chances of him remembering his little planters could be slim. But maybe he'd plant a seed again some day with this memory kicking around in the back of his little head.

My favorite part of the afternoon was not rolling and taping and filling and seeding. It was when the kids plunged their hands into the dirt looking for rolly-poleys, when they filled a plastic bottle with dirt and leaves for their rolly-poley farm and deposited found bugs in their new home. Should we poke holes so they can breathe? they asked, concerned for the wellbeing of their new pets. When digging in the bucket seemed ineffective they asked if they could dump out the dirt on the sidewalk. 

They seemed to expect me to say no, it would be too messy. 

I said sure, lets do it. 

We'll clean up the mess, they said without me saying anything about it. 

I smiled. "I like messes."

Dirty elbows and knees, kids looking through the dirt, asking other kids to come help. 

I love nothing more than getting kids dirty. I rarely see it. These city kids are told to stay clean. So many are scared of the earth that feeds them because their parents are too. So I tell them to get dirty, smell the soil, taste the chocolate mint and rosemary that sits on the table nearby. 

I think it is my job. But they teach me too. They give the bugs names and push around the soil and are earnest in their pursuit, totally in the moment. They are not thinking about climate change or where their dinner will come from. They stay until the hula hoops or glitter wands call to them and then they focus on gyrating and gluing glitter strewn beads to paper.

I smile and am happy in this moment, in this dirt, a water bottle full of rolly-poleys at my feet.

Giving back

He was shot in the head ten years ago.
Today he is pulling weeds from the tangled beds.
He is sifting compost with strong arms, strong back.
He is clearing pathways and unearthing wilting chard to be turned into soil.
He is grasping a trowel and bucket in his hands and marching through the farm saying to no one in particular and the world, "Yehaw! I am giving back! I'm doing something! Finally!"
After ten years of recovery, disability leave, short term memory loss and frustration, he is getting involved, getting active in his community, giving instead of taking, he says.
I tear up and laugh and smile, thankful for sunglasses to hide damp eyes.

He, and everyone else who has a story (of healing, memories, love- so yeah, everyone), that is why I'm here. We grow, we learn, we take bites of nectarines and give back our time and sweat. The line blurs and it is unclear whom is giving back to whom and it is a wonderful feeling to be in that blurry symbiotic space.

We can heal in the fellowship of the dirt.