I was planning on eating them.  At some point.  When I had time to cook.  

I forgot.  I procrastinated.  Potatoes don’t go bad, do they?  I left them in a bag on top of my desk, behind a box of Wall-Mart off-brand granola bars.  

Looking back on that month I spent doing calculus problem sets and scrolling through Facebook, I imagine those potatoes were judging me from their perch above my work space.  

“Look at that silly girl,” one potato might have said to the other.  
“She lived in Idaho for two months, for goodness’ sake.  She should know about potatoes.”  

The other potato, being a quiet kind of potato, might have just sat glumly, feeling neglected and a little squishy.  The other potato doesn’t get out much (its owner is a terrible person). 

I rediscovered the bag today while on a dorm room cleaning spree.  Intrigued by a little root pushing out of the side of the bag, I opened it.   

I love it!  My potatoes look like sea anemones! 

How beautiful is that?!  

I love the purple color, and the way the eyes of the potato look like crystal structures or unruly haircuts.  

But more than ANYTHING, I love the reminder that the whole world is very much alive, and things grow even when we don’t tell them to.  People usually think of food “going bad” as a gross thing, a sign of bad space hygiene.  And when cheese turns green, or the smell of sour milk makes me gag, I react that way too.  But I felt bad throwing these guys away… suddenly they had lives to me.  

This blog post was written entirely to marvel at a sack of potatoes, and at how beautiful the world can be if you let it.