The Tomato Situation

Labor Day weekend. We had a plan, which was to go to the farmers market, buy honey, and leave before either of us spent more than we'd budgeted. The plan lasted about seven minutes.

The honey took longer than expected because I couldn't decide between two jars and Simone, who is not a person who deliberates, stood there with the patience of someone who has been through the food photography class and the pottery question and the tab I closed at eleven on a Tuesday night, and she waited. I got both jars. I knew I was going to get both jars the whole time but I needed the four minutes anyway.

The honey deliberation. She was very serious about this.

We were on our way out, theoretically, when the argument started two stalls over. A man in a very confident linen shirt was explaining to a complete stranger, with the kind of committed specificity I genuinely respect, exactly why a particular heirloom tomato variety was being undervalued by the current market. The stranger was not convinced. We stayed. We didn't discuss staying. We just stopped walking and watched it happen like it was the most natural thing in the world. Simone said, quietly and without looking at me, 'he is not going to win this,' and she was right.

In motion. The conversation was continuous.

There's a postcard from Carol still sitting on my counter, she mentioned she's been trying to learn something new this year, one of those offhand lines that lands heavier than it was probably meant to. I've been thinking about it the way you think about a song you can't identify, just circling it. But that's for another post. Today was honey and tomatoes and a stranger's total conviction, and that was exactly enough.