Day 87 - The Perfect Nectarine

I went to the downtown Santa Cruz farmer's market today and had what I think was a perfect nectarine. It was sweet and drippy. The food I tasted afterwards, the strawberry, the greens, the English peas, although on top of their game I'm guessing, did not come close to the nectarine for the full-body response I had.

Later I walked by the stand again, and the man who had offered me a slice of a nectarine (which had then led to me buying one so I could eat and have the sweet drip down my arm as I walked around looking for bone broth) was full on hugging a woman behind their low wall of fruit. "Hey," I said, "I'm sorry to interrupt your loving, but I wanted to tell you that the nectarine I got here was a high note, and nothing else at this market has come close." 

His face lit up and he and the woman pulled apart and high fived. "She thinks we were loving on each other," she said. They laughed, and I saw that behind his jovial face was fatigue. I realized that maybe they were consoling each other because they had all this incredible fruit in front of them and no one, at the moment at least, was there buying any. I don't know. That was the story I told myself.

I'd lost my ATM card somewhere between the nectarine and the peas and so I couldn't buy any more of their produce, but I hope at the end of the market--fifteen minutes from now--their baskets are empty. I hope the people of Santa Cruz are walking around downtown with juice dripping down their chins and hands and arms and that everyone is happy and that the nectarine man and the woman he was holding so close have more money in their pockets than they'd expected and that they sleep like angels. 

When I'd started this 93-day project, I could not have asked for more than for me to be able to go out into the world and fall in love over and over and over again.

Mission accomplished.

See you tomorrow. 

xoxo