Cavorting Carrots

Never before has a vegetable so touched my heart.

I found among the mound of bunched carrots with their feathery tops a unique pair. And I do mean a pair. Two carrots in one bunch curled gently around each other, like sleeping lovers. 

Carrots sometimes grow in odd ways. In the presence of too much nitrogen, they fork and develop odd protrusions and protuberances, occasionally looking quite obscene. But these were smooth, neat, bright orange, healthy – they just twined around each other as they grew.

There I stood, in the produce aisle of my local natural foods market, my heart aching to be so embraced, and simultaneously feeling like a lunatic. I couldn’t possibly eat them. Vegetable empathy?

Of course I bought that bunch. And naturally, I photographed the carrot couple – from every angle – outdoors, on a bright blue plate. Autumn gentled the day, and the sun brushed the blue glaze with watery reflections.

Reviewing the photos shook my dreamy state a bit. Some looked more like someone in the grip of a boa constrictor. Others just looked like genes gone awry.  But a few did catch the twosome the way I first saw them – loving and sensuous. I knew I’d gotten the angle right when my heart went, “ohhhhh”.

Am I silly? Perhaps. But not as silly as my friend who suggested pickling the carrots to preserve them like an excised appendix or Einstein’s brain.