Unabashed

In the continuing saga of my life, I had an interesting experience I’d like to share, and one that again has awakened something inside me, something creeping and profound. Last summer I was with my mother and two nieces (aged 14 and 15) in my mother’s garden. She plucked a ripe tomato from the vine and smelled it, and then took a big bite out of it. My mouth watered. I’m used to the stock of vegetables we get at the market nowadays and I know how much difference there is between that and vine-fresh. It’s staggering. But my nieces had an entirely different take. One of them said, “Ew, gross!” And at that point there was exclaiming and proclamations on the wrongness of it all. What became clear to me in that moment was this: If something truly awful happened, and society collapsed, the human animal as it has evolved would be in a lot of trouble. Because a vegetable plucked off the vine is considered dirty, gross. That tomato was probably the cleanest, most pristinely perfect tomato those girls had ever seen, but since it wasn’t displayed in a bin at the grocer, because it was so close to soil and sky and life and segregated from any form of disinfectant by a good hundred yards, it was gross. Kids, it’s time to refresh your relationship with the Earth. Stop primping for a moment and watch the sunrise, let the rain fall on your face, stop fretting and just be.

Photo by bucklava.