Desire.

Update

The celery has mysteriously fallen over. I suspect the cat had something to do with it, but as usual, she’s in total denial, and is now taking the 5th. The celery, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to care After a few days it just turned all its flowers up and continues to grow.

I’m going to take a break from thinking about politics and write some thoughts about desire. (no, not that kind), this is about something a little different, so bear with me.

So, to get things started, I’d like you to behold the lowly celery, a vegetable that, if you’re like me, spends a lot of time in the fridge, getting old, and eventually being replaced with a newer one.

I always have one around, but, while there are a couple dishes I make that use a lot of it, it’s mostly kept for adding a piece here and there for flavor, or the occasional celery heart snack. So they usually just sit in the dark corner of the vegetable bin, thinking their quiet thoughts. It’s been a pattern for me for many years, I buy one, use a few pieces, put it back, use a few more a few days later, trim a bit, etc., etc. Eventually, it spends enough time in the fridge that it turns into the plant version of rubber, and out to the green recycle can it goes.

Did I mention that it’s dark in there, almost all of the time? The fridge does have a light, but it’s only on for a few seconds at a time, followed by hours and hours of darkness, all day, all night. Even when my kids stand there with the door open hunting for snacks it’s only for a minute or two, otherwise, lights out, this is the uneventful life of a common grocery store vegetable.

So, anyway, on to the story about Desire.

Early last fall, as I was fetching a few veggies, I noticed something different about my current stalk of celery. The outside layers were starting to go, like they always do, getting all yellow and soft, closing in on recycle time, but, from deep within the center, a single leafy stalk had appeared, and curiously, started to grow through the center, halfway down the stalk, making a hard right turn, to point straight up! A little unusual, I thought, but, so what? I did what I normally do, tossed the outer stalks, pinched off a few inner stems to eat, trimmed the ends, cut off the weird new growth, and put it back in its bin.

A few days later, hunting in the fridge again, I noticed that it had shrunk considerably, had grown another bright green, right angled stalk, poking out from deep inside itself, and was busy pushing the heavy glass cover of the bin out of the way!

Amazing, all this sudden, desperate effort to grow, without the slightest bit of encouragement, tucked away in the cold, no water, only brief flashes of light in an otherwise pitch black environment, and it still knew which way was up, and it was trying to climb it’s way out. It had lost over two-thirds of its mass to the cookpot and several rounds of trimming, and it didn’t seem to notice. I was impressed.

It was only a vegetable, and a celery at that, one of hundreds and hundreds I’ve casually eaten over the years, but for some reason, I felt empathy with its efforts, and instead of tossing it out I resolved to give it a chance. Although it was early fall, with the growing season long over, I took it outside, found a spot for it next to one of last season’s strawberries for company, and planted what was left of it. It was all shrunken down, with only a handful of soft stalks around that strange green shoot, and no roots at all, but what the heck, in the ground it went.

Later on, when I went to check on it I found that the critters that haunt my garden had discovered it, and promptly dug it up, sigh. It didn’t look much worse for the wear, so I trimmed a little more and put it back in the ground. A little bit of water and on my way. Next day, same thing. Oh well, try again.

A week goes by and things look good, the critters moved on to digging up something else. I relaxed a little bit, thought all was well, and then my cat, useless as usual in deterring the critters, decided it looked like a fun toy, dug it up, chewed on it for a while, and then proceeded to kick it around a bit. By the time I found it the poor thing looked quite a bit frazzled but, it was still green in the middle, so, after a stern warning to the cat,

back into the ground it went.

And surprise, surprise, it slowly took root and began to grow.

Nothing was easy for it, suffering more diggings, chewing’s, (my cat doesn’t listen very well), the wrong time of year, and a gardener that knows nothing about growing celery, and yet, it is thriving. It’s a couple feet tall now and even looks like it’s growing some little flowers!

I’ve gone through many other celery’s since I planted it, one just like another, for all the same reasons, but for this one there is no way I am going to eat any of it. If there ever was a plant that deserved to live out its full life cycle without being cut down, this one is it. Plants aren’t supposed to be able to touch people, but this one did, so there it is.

And this brings me to the Desire part. This little celery, just one out of those grown by the zillions, destined to be consumed, randomly winding up in my possession, repeatedly cut and trimmed, missing parts, left with the other vegetables in a completely hostile environment, no light, no water, just refused to give up. It wanted to live and grow so badly that it stood out with its efforts and caught the attention of one of the members of the fickle human race, (me) and impressed it to the point of being given another shot at a life out in the open air and sunlight.

All it had to do was want it so badly that I couldn’t help but notice, persuade me to give up my original, half-fulfilled intentions, (to eat it ) and instead exert myself to give it a hand, just because, and a second chance at life.

So there it is, today’s story about Desire, in this case just to live and grow, despite what should have been a hopeless situation, and where it can, however unlikely, lead. You get to take from the story what you want.

As always I am, of course, NADOA