Sunday

In the still heat of an August Sunday afternoon I’m wondering, as usual, what to have for supper. In the trees cicadas crank up their incessant  humming. I’ve heard that it’s the males doing this to attract females, and the hotter the day the louder the humming. Sounds logical.

Johnna and I had planned to drive over to Blairsville for breakfast at Hole in the Wall, a continuously operating diner since 1931. That’s a long stretch in the restaurant business, and a lot of bacon, eggs, and biscuits. But then we lingered over coffee, watching birds at the feeder and before long it was too late to beat the church crowd so we had Frosted Mini Wheats and blueberries on the porch instead. So much for planning. 

Driving up yesterday I pulled off the road where an older gentleman in overalls had a load of sweet corn in the bed of his ancient GMC pick up. 

“What you got there?” I asked. 

“Silver King.”

“Any relation to Silver Queen?”

“Her better tasting brother. Six dollars a dozen.”

In my pocket I have one five dollar bill.

“Give me ten for five bucks?”

“Yessir.”

He starts to pull back the husks on an ear, his hands trembling with the years. A farming life spent on, in, and of the earth. I pitch into shucking myself, and in a couple of minutes have my ten. As I’m leaving another truck pulls up and a man leans out the window.

“How much for the whole load?” He asks.

The answer is lost in the rumble of his small block Chevy and I drive away with my prize ten ears, happy to have made off with a small share of the bounty. 

So the corn will need to be eaten, and the sooner the better. The sugars are breaking down even as I pull in the driveway and unload. 

I was just reading the three basic keys to a longer, healthier life. Reduce stress, exercise, and eat more vegetables. No ambiguity there. For the past two weeks I have been enjoying home grown tomato sandwiches on good sourdough bread, and now I chop up fresh vegetables – zucchini, cauliflower, cucumber, red bell pepper – and boil some farfalle pasta for pasta salad. Summer vegetable pasta salad. Cutting the corn from the cobs, I saute and season it, then blister some cherry tomatoes in the oven. After everything cools it’s all mixed together with a creamy honey lemon vinaigrette.

Clipping some basil and parsley from the herb garden, boneless chicken thighs go in the pesto slurry and into the fridge. Just to wait a while and do its magic.

Out in the yard a racoon is climbing to the top of a high straight poplar tree. Sixty feet up, swaying on the slim distant limbs, he is thoroughly licking the leaves one bunch after another. Racoons are climbers but I’ve never seen one this high. First I thought he was after bird eggs in a high nest but apparently it’s bugs or larvae he is feasting on and worth the climb.

As the afternoon begins to cool we take a walk up the cove a ways, then turn straight up the mountain toward the Cohutta Wilderness. We call it butt burner hill because it is. And does. Also my lungs keep threatening to burst out of my chest. I’ve brought a walking stick along, a souvenir from canoeing the Boundary Waters last year. A beaver stick, white birch, bark chewed away. Light and stout.

Sundays are traditionally a day of rest. Also of reflection, contemplation, and appreciation. Of all of it. All of this. A day to find meaning. 

As the sun drops over the western mountains, we fire up the grill and cook the chicken to a light pesto crusted char. The pasta salad has macerated into the perfect summer side, all washed down with good White Burgundy.

Then in the soft dusk of twilight I remember the great poet Gary Snyder. 

In a rubble of years.

       touching,

 this dream pops. It was real:

       And it lasted forever.

Let’s see. Eliminate stress, check. (Art can help here.) Fresh vegetables, check. Exercise, check.

A good Sunday.