Harvest

Today the tractors were harvesting and the air in the car began to smell like the onions that were drying in the sun.

Nearly a year ago I heard a man say that a lot of people are good at planting, but not many people know how to harvest. That has stuck with me.

It's easy to throw a seed in the dirt. Sometimes it's strategic, methodic, carefully planned, but other times it can be haphazard, spontaneous, even accidental. Maybe it's as nonchalant as blowing a dandelion, breaking a cattail, tossing a core out the window. A lot of things can be considered planting.

But harvesting. It's waiting. Watching. Cultivating and tending and maintaining. It's knowing when the time is right.

Do I grab this tomato before the groundhog does? Or do I let it ripen one more day?

What's really going on underneath the soil where the onion greens are growing? Are they big enough? Too big? Stunted? Rotten?

Sometimes the harvest happens in multiple steps as it does with wheat. Sometimes it requires the right engineering, or just a skilled hand, to get only the desired fruit. It can demand labor and precision.

I remember picking strawberries with my mom. "Is this one ripe enough?" I remember digging carrots with my dad. "Why are they so small?"

Harvesting is more complicated than planting.

And so we don't prefer harvesting, we're not good at harvesting, we don't know how to harvest.

But then what's the point of planting?