A Bowl of Cherries

I go religiously to the Alemany Farmer’s Market on Saturdays. I’ve been going for decades now. Farmer’s markets have sprung up all over the city, but I am faithful to Alemany. It now has it’s share of “foodies”, of which I have to be one of the first, but it remains wildly diverse, a relic of the San Francisco I refuse to let go of.

I’ve been a Pagan since my early twenties. It was then, after my father’s suicide and the death a beloved cousin, that I moved to a small town on the Oregon coast. Recognizing the cycles of the moon and the turning of the tides became a lifeline as I moved through the shadowland of grief.  When I got sturdier, I moved to San Francisco.  It has been here that for most of my adult life I celebrated the turn of the wheel at public rituals.

The days of public ritual are past, but the farmer’s market remains. Here, I celebrate the first asparagus and rejoice during the brief weeks that asparagus, fava beans, and cherries are all in season.  Winter means root vegetables, Napa cabbage and empty booths. The woman who sells zucchini, summer squash and berries also sells sweet peas in early summer, replaced by sunflowers later on. The cycle of the earth around the sun is marked by the bounty of the earth through the changing seasons. 

Last Saturday was no different.  A close friend had surgery on Friday and our fears were confirmed that she has ovarian cancer. She had a ticket to fly to Italy that Saturday, the first trip to Europe in her lifetime. Instead, she is in the hospital trying to fart so she can eat something other than broth and jello. I was going  to see her on Sunday and my quest was to bring her a bouquet of fresh flowers and to get my usual provisions for the week.

So, I move through the market, collecting delphiniums  sweet peas and roses. I’m happy to see there is still spring garlic to buy and notice there is no longer a fava bean to be found. And then I go to the booth on the southwest corner where I get cherries.

Picking through the boxes of ripe cherries a man next to me says to the farmer “Is this the last of them?”  This startles me. Cherries have come early this year, I think because of the drought. But I expect them to last through June and into July.  “Next week will be the last, most likely, so get your fill”, says the farmer.

And I lose it.  Which seems to be happening a lot these days.  I say “NO!” with more emotion than anyone around me is prepared for and the tears start.  I am blubbering and saying I am sorry, my good friend has cancer  and I can’t stand that it is the end of cherry season. Then the guy next to me and the farmer get embarrassed and kind all at the same time.  There are lots of “I am sorry” and while that is happening I somehow buy 20 bucks worth of cherries.

Life is indeed bowl of cherries. Sweet, lush, and only here for a short time. I go home and make a cherry clafouti for dessert that night and put the flowers on my altar to charge up for the hospital visit the next day.

What can we do but honor  the place we are on the wheel and fully taste it?  And in the tasting, to be mindful that some are living on broth and jello. My dear friend doesn’t fart until sometime Wednesday. And, there’s a huge bag of pitted cherries in the freezer with her name on it.

Unusual Alchemy

 

“It's a highly unusual May.”  The nature guide repeats this phrase several times during our excursion near Ketchikan. Most of the clothes packed for this trip up Alaska's inner passage have gone unworn - no need for the wool sweaters, down vest, or fleece jacket. It's t-shirt and flip-flop weather.

Bald eagles soar overhead, waterfalls tumble down granite cliffs into the glittering sea, otters and seals scamper wetly, and every shade of green seems represented. The beauty of this balmy day is indisputable. 

Enjoy it while we can. It's a familiar feeling now, this mix of primal joy for the sunny clear day and abstract terror of what it signifies. I live in San Francisco, where the occasional fog keeps up a semblance of green in a state of aching drought.  But the sunny days in San Francisco are increasing. More of our days have become like this one, on the small boat steering along the coast of the Alaskan Tongas Rainforest with the sun shining brightly.

I turned sixty this year and this trip is a gift from the woman I've been dating for two years. Oh, who am I kidding? We are in a relationship. It’s only recently that I cleaned out a drawer for her in my home. To take this amount of time for that is highly unusual for lesbians, where the well-known joke of bringing a U-Haul to a second date is all too true. Oh, who am I kidding? That’s been true for me with both men and women. It’s taken me over 40 years to learn that having good sex and good conversation does not mean you should move in together. You aren’t seeing clearly when you are on the drug of new sex and good conversation. It takes time to ascertain if you both can veer towards kindness in a somewhat consistent fashion while not losing a sense of humor and desire.

So I've tried going slow, warding off my not so abstract terror of where this relationship could lead, (heartbreak, craziness, loss of self, boredom -I've experienced them all) while applying myself to the task of loving and being loved, which does not mean merging bank accounts or merging - period.

That work led to gratefully accepting the gift of a week's vacation together on a lesbian cruise ship.  Which led to this day excursion where there is something in the guide's voice, an awareness and a foreshadowing he's communicating that raises my minor body hair, sets my sixth sense abuzz, and brings about an alchemical reaction. Alchemy as defined as  “a seemingly magical process of transformation, creation, or combination.” 

It's such a glorious day, to not feel the joy of it feels like a sacrilege, like dissing the life force herself. There’s so much beauty around me and also such clear awareness of things changing, like the climate, that I feel my heart is going to explode or break, it’s expanding so much with combined feelings.  How can I feel such joy when this day is not only unusual, it's a harbinger of possible doom? At that moment, the terror is no longer abstract and it’s more than fear - it’s grief, rage and sorrow. And it is inexplicably mixed with ecstatic joy.  So, I breathe deeply, try not to sob,scream or laugh uncontrollably and thankfully I manage to discretely quake and let tears flow without notice. Standing against the rail of the boat, I reach for the hand of the woman who gifted me with this adventure and then someone points out yet another Bald Eagle in flight. And I smile.

I don’t need a photo of that moment, it etched in memory and fully embodied.  The combined feelings of awe and gratitude at the enormous gift of the complexity of life forms on this planet, mixed with the keening awareness of moving steadily into this unusual time where all bets are off and I will never be sure what to pack has transformed into one precious verb. It’s alchemy and it’s magic.

Its name is love.