Some folks know the difference between a tomato and a garden tomato. It's the immediate taste of "garden" that fills the mouth and makes the wait worthwhile. For me, there's no replacing the deliciousness of that ripe, juicy first slice or bite....and immediately, I'm back in my Granny Wade's country kitchen, not a day over ten and no care in the world except where the barn kittens may be hiding. Now that's a powerful reason to grow my own tomatoes!
The added blessing on those tomatoes comes from the fact that a dear, sweet neighbor gave me the plants....and he does every season. He and his wife have a natural bend to generosity and share with so many of us here in the neighborhood. We watch and wait for his strong tomato plants every spring.
This neighbor is also the source of another great connection. Several years ago (as in a decade or so!), he came in late fall carrying a cardboard box full of tiny little grapes, so small that a handful would be the only way to get a good taste. He asked if I wanted some "fox grapes" he had picked and had an abundant supply, telling me that his wife had "juiced" all she wanted. Of course, I said yes and then proceeded to ask how to juice them! Little did I know what a special treat the jelly I would make from the juice would be for another member of my family--my mama.
That Christmas, I gave away little jars of the jelly in packages, but it was my mama's reaction that would be the dearest gift to me. She lifted it out of her Christmas bag and thanked me as she held it up to look more closely, noting that it was "really dark and dense"--and then she said, "Gracious, is this fox grape jelly?!" I couldn't believe she knew, and she couldn't believe what she had in her hand, telling me she had not had any since she was a child and her family had moved "off the mountain into town." She's a rarity for sure in this day, having really lived in a log-cabin, played with crawdads in the creek, and romped through the woods, which was her backyard. At the moment she eyed the jar and it dawned on her what she had, she hurried to the kitchen, got a spoon, flipped off the lid and took a bite, beaming with delight. I'll never forget her face in those seconds as she slipped back to her younger days on Boauger Mountain for just a speck of time. She gets her own personal jars first every year that I have grapes.
It may be the fact that the past few weeks have been complex and demanding and a few slower moments with a garden tomato helped draw things to a different perspective, but the bite was surely amazing. We can certainly need that shift in the midst of stress and demand, but I am humbled by such a simple thing, knowing that it is my early experiences, just as it is my mama's, that enable that shift. And those simple things are all around. Take, for example, this beginning of an oak tree--a volunteer that popped up in the midst of my front flower bed, apparently having been tucked safely under the nearby dwarf bushes.
delicate and furry! I've never seen the very top of an oak tree before, and how gaze-stopping it is! I'm sure there have been other oak sproutlings, but in the thiry-seven years I've lived here, this one was a first for me.
So what's a body to do but get out the camera and do some looking. Maybe it was the light that morning or just that I had taken the time to see--I'm guessing it was a mix of both--but there were eye-treasures everywhere, like the little trailing geranium of the two-tiered bee-balm that stretched up in perfect glory. They were delighting my being for sure.
Such surprising hues and form! Where have I been??
So the "summah-time" moves quickly on. My lilies have bloomed out, the garden is giving goods each day, my overload of work still waits, and my camera sits ready for the moment I need a break and a breath and a sense of the abundant simple blessings around me. I'm thinking those blessings epitomize grace in my midst, and how thankful I am it's here.
