The List Did Not Survive the First Stall

July sixth. There was a list. I want to establish that before anything else. Not a long list, four things, written in my notes app on Saturday evening with the kind of confidence that only lasts until you are actually standing in front of a table of stone fruit and Simone is holding a peach and looking at it like it has something to answer for.

We went to the farmers market the way you go to a farmers market in early July, which is to say: in the direction of having a normal errand, and in the reality of spending an hour moving very slowly between stalls while accumulating things that were not on the list. Simone had what she called a system, which appeared from my vantage point to be a method of evaluating every item for longer than strictly necessary and then buying it anyway. I had intentions, which is a different thing and a less effective one.

the honey table, which is where we lost the thread of the list entirely

The honey table was where the list officially stopped mattering. There were samples. There was a jar of hot honey that I genuinely did not know existed as a category of product until that moment, and then I knew immediately that I needed it, and Simone said something sideways and accurate about the speed of that decision that I am not going to repeat here because she reads this. The tote got heavier from there. By the time we were back on the sidewalk I did a brief inventory and the four planned items were present, plus approximately three unplanned ones, plus the hot honey.

this was before we found the jam. the tote got worse after this.

I have been making more elaborate breakfasts lately, something I've mentioned here before without quite naming it as a habit, and the farmers market this summer has started to feel like the part of the week where that gets its raw material. Not planned. Just what's been happening. The hot honey has already appeared on two mornings and I have not photographed either of them, which feels correct.