Carrots slow dancing in the compost

The other day, I pulled two carrots out of the ground which have slowly grown in a spiral around each other. At another point in my life, I had a very specific ideal about how a carrot should look and might have been put off by the sight, whereas I now tend to treat their many shapes and sizes with excitement and awe at the diversity of what the garden can produce. I brought it out like some sort of prize and for a brief moment I realized how my aesthetic reactions to the world around me have changed over the years.

Like many bored Peace Corps volunteers, I became obsessed with composting. There were probably in the range of twenty to thirty piles surrounding my house. Some of these were made for demonstration purposes, but most were the result of discovering that I could play an active role in life by encouraging the decay from which it sprung. One day I decided to go get some cow pies for composting from a nearby cattle-stall. The kids were following me as usual, waiting to see what the crazy azungu was doing; and of course I forgot the shovel, so I was left to awkwardly trying to pick up the pies with two sticks. Then a very absurd thing happened; once the children understood my intentions, they began bringing me cow pies from all corners of the field, and using only their hands to do so! I started laughing with the joyous confusion that life can present as our pile of poo quickly overwhelmed the burlap sack. I thought about how funny this was. I couldn’t bring myself to pick up a pie but the children did so with no hesitation. I thought it was gross and wrong; they laughed and ran about. Actually, I observed many instances where Malawians would move poo about using their hands. And yes, I’m sure they washed their hands afterwards, but just the fact that they were able to touch the shit is enough for me to question the significance of my own aesthetic understanding of the act, but not enough to cause me to leave my shovel at home again.

I remember making it back to the States equipped with all sorts of new understandings about how I wanted my relationship with food and land to be; I wanted to be a farmer! And every good farmer needs a truck! Right? Just watch a TV or glance through a magazine and you’ll know what I mean. So, I bought a Dodge Dakota and drove out to California. And along the way, I had glimmers of how ridiculous my actions were. I felt so great in my truck; it was the key to my simple life on the land. What’s a couple gallons of gas in support of my calling? I thought. Everyone else is driving their cars about and they’re obviously not as noble as I. No, I was on my way to the real world and my badass truck was going to be the means by which I did so.

Sarcasm aside, these two memories are meant to be contrasting examples of the absurdity, and also the importance of aesthetics in the world; one that stopped me from being able to touch excrement, and one that justified a purchase. Both ran contradictory to a great deal of my “rational” understanding. I understand my hesitation in picking up the cow pies as the result of being raised in a culture that flushes our own smellys down the toilet; follows our dogs around with doggy bags; doesn’t compost - out of sight out of mind. I understand that I don’t need a truck to get where I’m going, but the powerful vision that I saw of myself behind one’s wheel overrode most of my unease. This behavior comes from all kinds of historical and ecological arrangements; a reaction to the cholera epidemic over two hundred years ago; the rise of the automobile as a socio-economic mainstay of twentieth century America. Now, it is difficult to see a supermarket that isn’t growing SUVs in the parking lot, a house without conventional toilets wasting our waste, or anything but “perfect” carrots lining the produce aisle. But let's remember where we have come from, and appreciate all shapes and sizes of veggies and the cycle they are a part of!

James