It's a steamy August night, the kind that inspires smoothies for dinner, sipped languidly, floating in the pool. Because it's summer on Martha's Vineyard, our tiny house is crammed with friends, both local and of the off-island variety. We're pressing sweaty beers to our foreheads, barely mustering up enough rowdiness to hear each other over the hum of the fans and the cicadas. All of us, that is, except for you.
You are a whirling dervish of activity in front of the Vulcan stove. You've got three burners going at full force- sterilizing jars, blanching snap beans, and jelling wineberries. There is an obvious rhythm in your madness, you are neither flustered nor confused, you are simply fully present. You are not worried about getting the kids to bed, about how best to adjust their sleeping schedule to accomodate the impending start of school. You don't fret over the frizz in your hair. You aren't afraid someone will snap an unflattering picture of you and post it on their Facebook page. As a matter of fact, I don't think you are afraid of anything.
Except, maybe, not having enough jam and pickled snap beans.
I could speculate on the source of your ever-present drive, your constant motion, your preoccupation with preparation. But not tonight. Tonight, I will simply admire your sultry culinary manuevering, you worker ant-ness to my grasshopperly ways. And if I can't stay completely in this moment, then I will look forward to winter mornings, when our house will seem too big and empty. But we won't be lonely at all. We will savor our wineberry jam on freshly baked bread, and each other, over a friendly game of scrabble.
2 comments:
This is really very poetically written. I loved reading it.
I've only recently left and I'm already nostalgic for long summer days at the farm. You and your whirling dervish of a husband make such a lovely pair! Thanks for sharing this window to your world with such an artful post.
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