We were 2/3 successful in 2005 in our tomato-growing efforts. Of two of our three bushes produced prodigiously, and yummily may I add. Sometimes I would stand in the yard, picking tomatoes right off the vine and popping them in my mouth because there's nothing better than a perfectly ripe tomato still warm from the sun.
The singular spicy green earthy scent of the tomato plants would transport me back twenty years to when my grandmother was still strong and blessed with the greenest thumb I've ever seen. Because of her efforts I've known the pleasure of eating tomatoes, potatoes, strawberries, green beans, and even peanuts fresh from the garden.
Now that my grandmother is frail and forgetful, she can't grow her vegetables any more. My parents have moved into the small cottage next to the garden plot to watch after her, and they've cleared out the dead stalks and vines to plant a butterfly garden - a peaceful place to sit and be still rather than to stoop and bend and weed and harvest.
If my grandmother showed me the rewards of coaxing and cultivating nature, my parents were instrumental in teaching me the pleasures of watching and understanding. We spent most of the vacations of my childhood camping. (We were too poor to afford much of anything else.) We would walk in the woods talking about different kinds of birds and flowers and berries and paddle canoes finding alligators and trees felled by beavers.
Little by little, however, I've let myself spend way too many hours in front of the television and the computer screen. The longer I let it go on, the less energy or motivation I have to tear myself away. At this point I'm tempted to make a dramatic gesture to reacquaint myself with the outside world, like quitting my job and setting up a yurt on the steppes of Mongolia or something, but that'll have to wait until it stops being so damn hot outside.
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