Well Provided

Thursday was a cold, wet, and dismal day. The kind of day where I take a train all the way to midtown and then fail to complete an errand because I can't bear the five block walk from the train through the tourists. It was also the kind of day that lets me know just how much I am loved.

First, a new neighbor came over for pie. Just stopped over, had some coffee, chatted, and took some pie. Could it be that Brooklyn is finally becoming, at least in part, the drop-in culture I dream of? Probably not, but it's a step in the right direction.



Then, I got to have dinner with Jill. Jill has known me for roughly eighteen years, and loved me for roughly thirteen of those. I don't grudge the first five, because the rest has been so good. Over the years,
Jill has pushed me, praised me to the skies, yelled at me, yelled with me, sung with me, done for me, and even lived with me.  Through it all, she has loved me, and she tells me so after every time I see her. I love her too, and am always grateful for her talent, her questions, and her constant loyalty, memory, and curiosity.

 After dinner, I came home wet and freezing to one more good thing. I knew that Matt had just had surprise oral surgery, so I wasn't expecting much in the way of conversation even, much less presents. But a large brown box was waiting for me in the hallway, with CSA vegetables on top and something even better on the bottom.

Last week, I posted about my ever-growing and obsessive desire for produce in large quantities. I wrote about it as a hunger for the more rural landscape of my childhood, as a desire for more than enough, for fullness and safety. Stacey has confessed on more than one occasion that she has a similar relationship with squash. Too many squash in the house, she admits, gives her a feeling of safety. Every time I go to the farmer's market, I think about all the security those tables and tables of multi-colored squash could give, and sometimes I get her a little one for a present. Sometimes I get one for myself as well.

Clearly, my loved ones took that post to heart, or just knew it well already. I got an email from my mother the other day telling me that she was blackening her hands cracking black walnuts for me (what black walnuts? from where? had we discussed this or did she just assume (rightly) that I would want any black walnuts upon which she stumbled?). And Matt, when he showed at the end of CSA pickup swollen and craving soft foods, knew me well enough that when the site coordinator told him to take all the apples he wanted, he took the whole box, and carried it proudly home for me. I danced around and couldn't stop exclaiming for hours. He knows me, this man, and he loves me. And he's a good provider. A whole cellar of squash couldn't make me feel so warm inside.

As for the outside, I think I definitely need some new boots and slippers. So I can shuffle around the house making apple butter, of course.