My hands have been covered in dirt lately. Wet, dark soil that gets into every wrinkle and crack, nailbed and dry fiber. It all comes from there, the dirt. It ends there too.
When I was a young girl we went to visit some family friends who lived on a ranch but didn't work in ranching. Their house had white carpet, light colored furniture and matching towels. It smelled like lemons and chemicals and we all took our shoes off before we were welcomed inside. That night there was a thunderstorm and I knew that our border collie, Jake, was scared of storms so I went outside to get him. I let him out of the trailer, splashed through the puddles, then picked him up after I took my shoes off on the porch. The next morning, my horrified parents found me in my white clean bedroom cuddled up under my high thread count with Jake, the muddy, cow-shit covered dog, who was scared of storms.
I think back to the trouble I got into that day, especially when I walk into places that smell like lemon and chemicals. Where the air is conditioned, the lights are bright and people shake hands with soft clean cuticles. There are always pictures of landscapes in these places, as there was in that ranch house. Pictures of dirt but no traces of it. Every bit of design is there, in fact to keep you up off the ground, out of reach from the discomforts of the natural world.
It feels clean to work in the dirt, it washes the soul and clears the mind. Cleanliness is next to Godliness but what if cleanliness has nothing to do with soap or the color white. What if cleanliness is that gift of clarity that comes from being in the dirt. Sitting on, playing in, working for, caring about, digging up, the dirt.
I wash my hands in the sink and watch the brown water run into the drain. I think about the times in my life when I have been standing in a high rise, on top of concrete, in a pair of new high heels. I felt fine up there. But if I had to decide between that life and this, between comfort and nature. I would happily give up the high-count thread sheets for the friendship of a cowdog and night in the dirty, shit covered trailer.
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