EMWTTSFM - Summer's Simple Celebrations
I’m not really sure when summer begins. Does it begin after the last frost, at the first thick morning fog, or on the summer solstice? Does it begin when the neighborhood pool opens, at the first “Play Ball,” when dandelions become the dominant green and yellow in the backyard, or when the last school’s-out bell rings? What about the day you roll down the window instead of turning on the car’s AC?
Or do all those moments just bring a hint about the real summer? The summertime when every week is a celebration of everything you’ve put up with during the rest of the year. The job, taking kids to school and doctors’ appointments, talking to the driver in the car going slow in the fast lane, laughing at the driver speeding past you only to catch the same red light you do, getting behind someone in line whose card doesn’t work, the Wendy’s drive-through line wrapping around the building, someone eating the leftovers you’d planned for an evening snack, the neighbor deciding to mow the lawn early in the morning, your coupon for $1 off expiring yesterday and that is the rule, and missing the left-turn signal because the person in front of you was looking at their phone.
Does it begin with the first Saturday Market of the year, when the first tangible evidence of the future arrives? When the first strawberries appear? First-of-the-season lettuce, spinach, onions?
Summer, the real summer, the celebratory summer, arrives when the market has large, deep-red tomatoes, thick and firm; full ears of Delectable corn; green and purple beans; sweet cherry tomatoes; and buckets of flowers.
That’s when summer becomes more than a promise. More than an expectation. More than a possibility.
It becomes real in the form of the farmers’ hard work, the risky work that depends on elements they can’t control. And there are the results, sitting on tables, transported from their land to 85 parking spaces converted for a few hours into an altar of plenty celebrating the bounty of summer.
The sponsor of the market gives away shopping bags, often walking through the market and handing them to people whose arms are overloaded or whose own bags are already filled. It’s a shopping bag, a simple gift that signifies both the plenty and the shopper’s desire to take summer home in the form of fruits, vegetables, breads, and meats.
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