In Memoriam
Friday, September 10, 2010 at 5:16PM 
in 'sconset, nantucket (Diana F+; Fuji Velvia RVP 100 slide film)
I feel like I should explain this little essay, but I don't know what I'd say that isn't already there. So I offer it as is....
When a friend invited me on an adventure, I was so excited I immediately went out to my little garden and started picking the tomatoes that still hung on the vines. As I loaded a bowl with fat red rounders and little cherry reds, picking my way among the drying, brittle leaves, I apologized to the plants, and thanked them for providing for me even when mother nature and I haven't always provided for them. Some of the tomatoes had rotted on the vine or dropped to the dry ground and gone mushy. One oozed a whitish pus from a wound. A little piece of me mourned this wasted fruit, but I knew we were already glutted with “'maters,” more than we could eat or giveaway. I tugged a few green ones from the stems, to fry up later. This kind of harvesting feels like a premature death, but I'd rather have a fresh green, tart treat on my plate than a weepy mass of browning pulp in the dirt.
I came inside and put a few of my husband's shirts in the wash because he needs them for work this week, and because sometimes, when I feel generous and energetic, I don't mind doing these kind of favors. Back in the kitchen, the still dirty tomatoes sat off to the side, waiting for a rinse before joining their brethren on the countertop. I cleaned out the sink. I needed a clean sink because I wanted to wash the watermelon that had been sitting on the kitchen island for a few days, and in a plastic bag in the powder room sink for days before that.
Every time I clean my sink, I think of you, you who gave me housekeeping tips about a shiny sink while you were dying and trying not to die of cancer there on the other side of the world, down under, as we call it. I think of you and how you can no longer shine your sink, because despite fighting and trying, you did die. I didn't really know you, but you took time out for me, so I clean my kitchen sink in tribute to you. I should do it more often, I know.
The watermelon is almost perfectly round, like a bowling ball, and heavy like one, too. There's one flat spot that has yellowed, the ground spot they call it, and it glows pale against the hunter green skin of the ball. I bought it from an old man and woman selling produce out of the back of their truck at the farmers' market. They had set up shop away from the other vendors. I've seen others do this, and I'm never sure if it's because they've run out of space in the main area or if these are rogue sellers, piggybacking on the organized system. I was walking back to my car when I saw this round bowling ball of a melon. Is that a watermelon?, I asked. It's a sugarbaby, the old woman said, her face wrinkled and puckered, like an old grape with no teeth. While she put tomatoes in a bag for another lady, the old man talked to me. He was missing teeth too, and spoke with such a thick accent of old age and field work that I didn't know what he was saying, but I think he was telling me why his watermelons are so good. I pretended to understand him, nodding and smiling and saying, oh and ah. I bluffed pretty good. But I wonder if he knew I was bluffing. Old men who have worked in fields their whole life know things. And he probably knew this. Finally the old woman came around to fetch the sugarbaby for me. I couldn't fathom how she'd lift the beast. I said, here, let me get it. And I helped her put it in the bag. She looked frail, but for all I know that old toothless grape of a woman could have lifted me. Women have strength that surprises. When I cut into it tonight, that watermelon, after washing it like a baby in the sink, the fresh pink smell of summer juice filled me. I hurried to cut off a slab to bite into. And it was summer there in my kitchen on September First of the year after you died, even though it's almost fall here and almost spring there. I chowed down on that watermelon. Fireflies and the smell of sweet hay filled my kitchen. And wet towels after swimming in the pool all day, the coconuty smell of suntan lotion, and butter on sweet ears of corn. I chomped and slurped, filling my cheeks like a squirrel or chipmunk, gorging on the essence of summer and life. There in my kitchen, with the tomatoes waiting patiently next to my clean silver sink.
Reader Comments (4)
xoxo