Moving at the speed of squash

Squash is native to the Americas, having been transported by humans from Mexico and Central America, they have spread around the world where there is enough summer warmth to let them grow. They add color to late autumn and early winter- a mainstay for U.S. fall and winter holidays. In our garden we grow them in the garden with potatoes and corn- plants that need vertical and horizontal space. They insinuate themselves into the open spaces between other creeping plants and attempt to climb up the stalks of corn. They are very successful competitors as long as there is enough heat. Last year I didn't add enough water and production was low. It finally dawned on me that corn and squash have high water content and it has to come from somewhere. (Might seem like an easy connection to make, but not always are the simplest things the most evident.)

Like so many fruits and vegetables, the grocery store variety require (it is what sells and stores need to make money) standardization and perfection. Blemish-free is the aim. Squash, pumpkins (most of them are really squash), potatoes, apples, corn... are expected to be "perfect" and fit within a shoppers idea of what a perfect squash is. It is curious that people choose to eat things that fit their perception of a plant rather than something that is nutritional and tasty. Hot house tomatoes that are transported from Florida during the winter is an example of them. They are planted in sand (that provides no nutritional value), picked while they are rock-hard green, and then sold in stores because people need the look of a perfect a tomato. Our squash are nutritious, pretty, and imperfect.

We often are fooled by the exterior of things and don't look deeper than the surface. Cut open a squash and beauty reveals itself through color, texture, and shape. There is a structure that is remarkable... that we soon disrupt by scooping out the innards. What keeps us from appreciating the inner beauty of things- including other human beings? It seems that one of the things that keep us from delving deeply into things is the speed in which we live. Just like the quality of soil and light impact the quality of taste in a vegetable, so does the culture and environment we live in formulate the world we live in. If we buy cheap products at Wal-Mart that quickly find themselves in landfills, then we get the fruit of that lifestyle.

We are pack animals that are impacted by our culture and society. Speed and complexity and neo-chaos become the food that we take in. It becomes the food that we feed our children. It forms the social structures we live in. How do we break the cycle? Does the cycle need to be broken? I do fear the breakneck speed will lead us into an out-of-control spin that increase the chaos that only the powerful and youth will be able to match. It does not bode well for the more vulnerable people in our world: children, elderly, and the ill who are faced with limited knowledge or energy.

Squash are opportunistic. They are not perennials (unless you consider them storing the potential of life in their seeds as a way of enshrining perpetual life). They have the capacity to live in the wild and self-perpetuate, but they are not native to the northern latitudes where they need energy through labor and supplementation. They expand rapidly when given the right conditions. They provide nutrition and beauty into our lives. I live with the hope that I can learn to watch the daily (and slow when compared to the speed of this iMac) growth while being a productive and aging member of this complex and speedy world. I don't think we can live as Luddites unless we advocate the collapse of our world and a spiraling into a chaos that would harm so many people. I trust in the capacity for creativity and innovation. In a way I look forward to us finding the space between the corn that allows us to grow symbiotically.