If We Were Just Chatting On the Porch...

I just took delivery on a set of popsicle molds, and they’re already in the freezer, filled with a mixed berry protein smoothie blend, doing their job. An extravagance, I know. No one really needs popsicles, much less the added step of freezing your liquid breakfast so you can eat it from a stick with one hand, the other one on the steering wheel as you commute to work. But I believe in being prepared for whatever may come, and summer is on its way.

It’s not nostalgia that brought this new—what, appliance? Gadget?—into our kitchen. Growing up, ours wasn’t That House in the neighborhood that drew children from blocks around us in a line to our front porch waiting for frozen handouts as soon as schools closed for the summer. We had the normal flow of friend traffic from June to September, and sometimes they stayed for lunch or we shared a bowl of pretzels, but the reason for our get-togethers was mostly to play, not eat. I do recall one play day with a young pal, involving our attempt to create an exotic treat based on something we watched in a National Geographic episode about a group of folks incorporating insects into their meals. We all need protein, right? Inspired and not at all squeamish, we poured Hershey’s syrup into a spoon, completely covering a dead bee we’d found next to a dandelion blossom in the un-sprayed back yard, and put it in the freezer to set before giving it to another friend’s mom to try. It wasn’t a prank, honest. She was a nice lady, we knew she loved chocolate, and we wanted her opinion on our attempt to expand our youthfully-limited culinary palates. Imagine our horror when the bee’s stinger connected with her lower lip on the last bite. We watched it swell up as she handed the spoon back to us and headed to her own kitchen for a baking soda poultice. She must have shared the story with our parents at some point that summer; I have a blurry memory of mom coming back from having coffee with her a few weeks after the incident, asking what in the world we were thinking, freezing a bee in chocolate. “You’re just damn lucky she wasn’t allergic—honestly, you kids!” Of course, my friend and I had immediately decided to stick with the food and flavors we knew as we watched our friend’s mom’s lip double in size before our eyes, and hung up our test kitchen aprons in pursuit of other experiments. I can only imagine the words my own mom tried to find as she unspooled the deepest of apologies to our neighbor across that shared pot of coffee (Note to self: take a few moments to reflect on other lessons in forgiveness from your formative years. It’s time well-spent).

This year’s summer plans are still on the drafting table, and they don’t include that level of experimentation. But who knows? Three months ago, I didn’t own a cloth face mask. We must be open to the movement of spirit-plus-necessity and adjust our agendas accordingly. If you work well on shifting sands, this could be your finest hour. I encourage you to seize it with both hands.

Last night before dinner, I harvested a large plastic bowl full of wild garlic mustard. It’s wonderfully plentiful along the banks of our creek, beneath the pines along the ridge, and at the feet of the young mulberry saplings gathered in a semi-circle just off the front porch. In other words, everywhere. The work of plucking each heart-shaped leaf from the stem is offset by the way it expands our salad supply and lowers that line item on our grocery bill. And, it’s just the two of us at home, so what’s a little garlic breath between two married people? The behind-the-mask ricochet effect isn’t pleasant, but it’s nothing to get fussed about either. See? My culinary palate has matured. Finally.

I am looking forward to our first garden harvest this season, considering all the work we’ve put into coddling the seedlings that sprawl their thin green stems across their respective (and repurposed) planting trays to visit with one another in the bright sunlight of the guest room’s south-facing window. Viewed as one, it resembles the day care version of Little Shop of Horrors, and even if we were hosting loved ones from afar, I doubt they’d want to sleep in the oak sleigh bed a mere three feet away. Runner beans, even in their youth, do look as if they want to wrap ‘round your neck and stay there. Thank goodness the tomato starts are too small to give away their eventual vining tendencies. They’ll be outside and beneath the soil line long before they look like the wandering souls that they are. I’ll try to tame them at first, like I do every year we’ve grown them, but I surrender to the sheer volume of suckers that sprout from seemingly every “elbow”, and let them continue through the season as their wild and gangly selves. Makes me wonder what kind of parent I’d have been.

Keeping all of these moving parts moving is a sizeable part of our days, and we made note of that after dinner the other night. What did we do before the pandemic closed in the walls of our otherwise to-and-fro existence? It’s strange…I miss a few things about that rhythm from back in late February/early March, but feel quite at peace tending to what’s important and right in front of us from one day to the next. Now it’s about keeping the compost turned and fluffy, rotating the seedlings toward the sun, and splitting my work days between office and home. There’s still plenty to do there, and I’m damn lucky to have a job. Not a day passes when I don’t offer that up to the skies before I dig into a still-hefty to-do list. Every day has something to do with the handmade masks our volunteer staff are making for members of our clinical teams. We discuss adjustments to the patterns we provided and who’s got a line on a source for elastic. Whether the straps should fit around the head or around the ears. There’s no “once and for all” anymore, not even in sewing. Then I think about the colleagues who will wear them, and my gaze is skyward again. Keep them safe, please.

So, dear readers (if you’ve traveled this far with me), we’ve gone from popsicles to chocolate covered bees to face masks, and there’s probably still more to be said. If the sun comes up tomorrow, if we’re granted another day to try and get it right, we can pick up where we left off. I’d be ok with that.