October 08, 2009
The tomato plants were heavy with fruit, and the nights are menacing with frost. Each morning the basil is nipped farther back, its leaves curling and dark. So I gathered a large bowlful of tomatoes, because the frost won't wait, just because the tomatoes are ripening.
Mom gave me a bag full of concord grapes, a gift from a friend of hers. They smelled like grape soda, like candy, like grapes should. And I set them aside, because I was busy chopping up tomatoes, slicing garlic, and putting it all in a pot to simmer. Every time I walked past the grapes, the perfume reminded me that the clock was ticking, because grapes won't wait just because tomato chunks are simmering on the stove.
As I cranked the food mill, tomato sauce dripping below, tomato seeds somehow stuck to the back of my hand, Sophia rolled over on her blanket, rolled again, slapped the floor with her hands, and let out a wail. She'd gotten her immunizations and was angry and sad and wanted to be held. I wiped my hands on a towel and scooped her up, trying to figure out a way to crank the handle with my one free hand, because a needy baby won't stop needing you just because there's tomato sauce to be made.
I pulled grapes free from their stems, thousands of grapes, millions of grapes, a whole constellation of grapes. And Tre came in to help me, to stand in the middle of the grape scent and pluck and drop in the pot, next to me and chatting. He threw off my rhythm, but I had to step aside and let him join in, because a 14 year old boy won't stop growing up just because I have a rhythm going.
I pulled together the ends of a bundle of cheesecloth, wrapped around grape pulp. It wasn't dripping fast enough, and I couldn't figure out how to encourage the juice from inside to leak into the bowl outside. Max was sitting behind me, reading to me about the Treaty of Waitangifrom his history book. I had to put down my deep purple bundle of worry and sit down across from him, look him in the eye, and tell him about what I saw when I lived in New Zealand, and how injustice doesn't evaporate just because time passes. It wasn't solving the problem of the pulp, but fifth grade doesn't stop just because I am trying to separate juice from its original home.
Every minute I have, there seem to be at least two events that want to occupy it. It took me two days to make the grapes into jelly, and three days to finish writing this. Days fly by at a stuttering pace, and the only thing I'm sure of is this: nothing can wait, but everything ends.
Even though I don't have kids - I can so identify with this. Every day I cross a dozen things off my "to-do" list - and every day I add two dozen MORE things to the list. I wonder when net-zero is going to happen.
But kudos for you for recognizing that somethings are whizzing by and you need to stop and enjoy them now.
Posted by: Mit | October 09, 2009 at 01:13 PM
You're just so dang good at this. All of it. The writing, the parenting, the wisdom, the delivering of a can of grape jelly to my door because I'm recuperating...oops! Sorry, that last part just slipped out.
Posted by: Kristy | October 11, 2009 at 02:34 PM
You have summed my days up for me nicely-thank you.
Posted by: Denise | October 12, 2009 at 07:46 PM
I have been thinking of a way to say what your last line summed up for me. But my version took about 20 more lines!
Thank you for the stories!
Posted by: Shannon | October 12, 2009 at 09:28 PM