About to Go

Eight forty-five and we were already 'about to leave.' That was forty minutes ago. Simone had texted at eight saying she'd be at the corner in ten, which she was, and then we walked into the market and immediately stopped making decisions.

There is a specific paralysis that sets in at an outdoor market in October when everything looks like it belongs on a windowsill. I already have a windowsill. It is fully occupied. The collapsed bowl is on the shelf above the stove, the arrangement is doing its thing in December light, well, October light, and the cord is where it lives. I do not need a gourd. I held two of them up anyway, for comparison, for maybe three minutes, which Simone photographed because of course she did.

Three minutes. Minimum.

She texted it to me later with no commentary. The picture says everything.

At some point Simone stopped at the preserves table and read the little hand-lettered card propped against the honey jars with the expression she gets when she is about to ask a very precise question.

The one on the left was always going to win.

She did not buy anything. Neither did I. We both bought kettle corn from the stall at the far end because that was always going to happen and we both knew it walking in. That's the real farmers market math: you think you're deciding, but the kettle corn was already decided.

We finally left around ten-fifteen. Simone said 'okay, for real this time' and that was the third time she'd said it. I didn't point that out. Some things you let be the thing they are. The gourd is on the windowsill, I know, I know, just until I figure out what I think about it.