Forms of Life?

Today I invited some friends over to pull radishes. It felt wonderful.

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It was only afterward that I realized the pastoral life I long for, this contact with nature, isn't something everyone is interested in. Some people love the experience, love the feeling of it; they pulled with real effort and real enjoyment. Some tried it once or twice, decided it was too much trouble, and lost interest. And some didn't want to touch a single one. But that's all right. If I can create the opportunity for the people who do enjoy it, that's already enough.

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It wasn't until they marveled at every radish, the ones shaped like mortise-and-tenon joints, the ones shaped like Huba, the perfect ones, the tiny ones, that I realized how lucky I've been: my whole life, I've had the chance to witness nature in all its countless forms, rather than the flawless clones arranged on supermarket shelves. The variety of the carrots was a novelty to them, and the different ways people felt about pulling them gave me something to think about.