The Joy Is in the Dirt

On my way home I passed Art's produce stand. A sign by the road advertised russet potatoes for such and such a pound. I have no need for russet potatoes right now. My mother has a big plastic bag of them from Idaho languishing in the bottom of our pantry. Besides, right then my mind was crowded with the plethora of squash I have eaten and will eat in the future; there was a fresh carnival squash in my backseat at that precise moment, a variety that bears a suspicious resemblance to its sweet dumpling cousin...

Like I said, russet potatoes were not on my radar. Goat cheese and asparagus, yes. Goat cheese and asparagus together on homemade dough, baked and eaten like a pizza, definitely. In fact, that's dinner tomorrow night. But when I registered those two simple words -- russet, potatoes -- a nearly imperceptible rush of memories captivated me for the rest of the drive home.

When I think of potatoes, I mean, really think about them, my mind first registers their undeniable, glorious smell of dirt. I don't know many scents that can top the aroma of damp earth, a delight intensified by its rich color, one as tied to life as the color green. Beyond that I would probably think of a russet potato's manatee-like skin and the way it peels away like tissue paper when you bake it, but my potato meditation this afternoon didn't make it past that deep, dark, earthen musk.

Simply because of that sign by the road, a sign I only half-looked-at anyway, my collective unconscious cracked open and I started thinking about dirt under my nails and rocky soil passing for farmland. I thought about the wind, about the chill. I pictured perseverance and resourcefulness in the forms of the people who came before me, those Irish strangers I can only imagine. I constructed a vision of myself as a potato farmer, dirty from the shins down in faded jeans and a worn-out t-shirt, devising 40 different ways to prepare potatoes, half of them involving cabbage.

I remembered an Ireland I have never seen. I remembered fires and music and the unending night of winter. I remembered eating potatoes I had helped harvest. I remembered being poor.

Someday I'll get there. Someday I'll go home. Until then, the joy is in the dirt.