I posted this back in 2009 but thought of it again while looking at the calendar for August and realizing we’re only 5 weeks away from the equinox. Sigh. But on the other hand, summer produce is at its peak. Maybe it will move you to tears like the author, too.
A Warm Summer in San Francisco
Although I watched and waited for it every day,
somehow I missed it, the moment when everything reached
the peak of ripeness. It wasn’t at the solstice; that was only
the time of the longest light. It was sometime after that, when
the plants had absorbed all that sun, had taken it into themselves
for food and swelled to the height of fullness. It was in July,
in a dizzy blaze of heat and fog, when on some nights
it was too hot to sleep, and the restaurants set half their tables
on the sidewalks; outside the city, down the coast,
the Milky Way floated overhead, and shooting stars
fell from the sky over the ocean. One day the garden
was almost overwhelmed with fruition:
My sweet peas struggled out of the raised bed onto the mulch
of laurel leaves and bark and pods, their brilliantly colored
sunbonnets of rose and stippled pink, magenta and deep purple
pouring out a perfume that was almost oriental. Black-eyed Susans
stared from the flower borders, the orange cherry tomatoes
were sweet as candy, the corn fattened in its swaths of silk,
hummingbirds spiraled by in pairs, the bees gave up
and decided to live in the lavender. At the market,
surrounded by black plums and rosy plums and sugar prunes
and white-fleshed peaches and nectarines, perfumey melons
and mangos, purple figs in green plastic baskets,
clusters of tiny Champagne grapes and piles of red-black cherries
and apricots freckled and streaked with rose, I felt tears
come into my eyes, absurdly, because I knew
that summer had peaked and was already passing
away. I felt very close then to understanding
the mystery; it seemed to me that I almost knew
what it meant to be alive, as if my life had swelled
to some high moment of response, as if I could
reach out and touch the season, as if I were inside
its body, surrounded by sweet pulp and juice,
shimmering veins and ripened skin.
That is *exactly* what it is like to live in Sonoma County, an hour’s drive north of SF. I lived there for years and years and always had a garden and stopped at the Palace of Fruit for anything I didn’t have the years to grow — like plums and figs. The poem brought little wells to my eyes because I’m having a crappy anxiety ridden morning and remembering those moments was a gift. I had my own tower of sweet peas (you grow them just for the flowers, the peas are hard and toxic),cherry tomatoes, blossoms, corn, basil. The over-abundance at the fruit stand smells and looks so good you buy more than you possibly eat, but then find a way to make cobblers and primavera and layer everything with local cheeses and wine. I miss my home.
Aw. Anxiety seems to be in the air lately. Hugs!