Farmer’s Market Veggies

This morning my hands and fingers are frigid. I’m running late, but my writing moments usually take precedence and then I will find myself in a rushed mode, which I don’t care for. But this is part of my daily ritual, whether it stays sealed in my notebooks or appears here in the moment. There are so many journal clippings, thoughts, and more books that I want to share. They collect and then, patiently, they simmer in my notebooks, or my mental crockpot.

The weekend included a visit to the Farmer’s Market. I walked from stand to stand looking for veggies mostly. Last night I brought the veggies out, knowing I would base dinner around them. There is nothing besides being outside in nature that I enjoy more than admiring fruits and vegetables. In last night’s case, just vegetables. And when I start chopping and setting them into the pot, the colors blending together, it is a sight that I can look at over and over. Fresh veggies with their different skins and juices and fresh oozings and drips of freshness that reach up to my olfactory and put me there under the sun on the farms with the fresh soil and the good smell of earth. I am the okra, the eggplant, the zucchini—yellow and green—and I’m the garlic with it’s pungent kick that mellows as it cooks and becomes so soft, it melts in my mouth—the green bells and the red bells—all of these happy veggies, having gone through a long process, of growth and handling, to eventually reach me here in this most smallest of kitchens, that feels like the size of a hobbit’s, but it suits me well. And of course, other additions joined the veggies, but I wanted to honor them on their own, to savor their goodness for a few moments more.