To Understanding Love
Today, after sleeping in later than
I ever have in a long time, dog staring at me with longing eyes, I asked Chico
if he wanted to go on a walk. He leaped
in excitement up to the bed, nudged me with his whining cries of happiness to
get up, to move, to take him with me. OK,
ok. I grabbed a couple of reusable
shopping bags and walked to the farmer’s market. My garden I tilled into the grass lawn of the
rental house where I live is bursting with most everything I need right now
except one item, something I long for from my house in Logan: peaches.
I tie Chico to a tree on the
outskirts of the Farmer’s market next to the small gathered group of coffee
aficionados sitting in lawn chairs each week sharing stories. I am only doing one pass through the market. After last week, I know which places to
avoid, but not sure which ones are the best.
Last week I bought from the most expensive and the least. Neither was outstanding. Perhaps my expectations were too high. How can anything compare to the trees I
planted myself?
I stop at
the first table with Sierra Beauties with dark rings of Saturn-red. The skin seems almost to have been burned from
sun. They are a unique cultivar I have
never heard before. I know Sierra Beauty
apples. I take 10 or so of them into my
bag, pay, and continue to walk. I come
upon another booth where a boisterous man talks of peaches. His signs hand-written to say “organic,” and
his price fair, almost the cheapest. He
has Fay Elberta peaches; it is a variety I know well. The Elberta is a common cultivar. The Fay has some subtle differences. I miss the Redhaven peaches from my yard, but
the Fay Alberta is a classic yellow peach.
He says they were picked this morning right before coming down to the
market.
I look for
ones not bruised, but not too firm. As I
do this, another lady wedges in alongside me.
She picks up a peach, turns the soft fuzz in her hand, holds it up to
her nose and inhales deep from the fruit.
She sets it back down and walks away.
They look good to me, much more yellow than the dark crimson of the
Sierra Beauties, but color can be quite superficial in the peach world. The white peaches are too sweet for my
palate.
The man
comments, “I don't know what a person is looking for when they come up and feel
a peach like this, and then turn away from it.”
He was priced as one of the cheapest and it couldn't have been
price. They were surely not over-ripe
either, but he ponders that perhaps they are looking for something less
ripe. I didn't think he really wanted an
answer. It seemed more rhetorical to
me. I grab ten more peaches, place them
in my bag and hand them to him to weigh.
He subtracts for my bag, then says wait and reaches over to a golden pluot
and puts in my bag. “Try this; you will
love it.”
I go back
to Chico waiting at the Camphor tree where he is tied. He stares to the direction from which I left
and doesn't see me approach; when he does, he is excited. I take him off the leash and we meander back
home, stopping at the creek for him to drink.
When I get home, I set down the two bags of peaches on the tiled
counter. Pull one of the Fay Elberta
peaches from the bag, run it under the cold water, slice with a knife along the
soft flesh until the sharp blade meets the stone drupe at the center. Delicately, I pull the two halves apart. The drupe remains in the one side and I pry
it loose. There is something entrancing
about rough flesh and blood red of the center of the peach. The texture is alarming, murderous, and
sensual.
I put one
half to my mouth and feel it melt to my tongue.
I have learned to love the soft fuzz of the skin, the way it slowly peels
away from the dripping flesh, the bitter tough texture against the fragile
fruit. The first half is gone too
quickly. It fades from the tongue like
desire and I quickly consume the second half with all too much vigor and it is over. Sometimes, I think about everything it took
for that one fruit to get to such beauty, the distance of the sun, the movement
of water, the dance of the bees, the delicate hands of the harvester, and my
devouring desire lasts but a few seconds until it is all relegated to a memory,
joined together with so many other peaches.
Can I remember this one?
