Peonies, peas and prayers

Every Wednesday afternoon, just around the corner from my apartment, is a wonderful little farmers market. Tomorrow will be the last time its open for the season. It’s one of the neat things about living in this neighborhood. There’s always live music of one kind or another, someone passing trying to get petition signatures for this cause or that, and some great tamales being grilled with a side of fresh vegetables that were just bought there that day. Kids are everywhere and families lounge on blankets in the park adjacent to the market. It’s like a neighborhood festival every week.

There’s a general pattern to my wanderings there. I’ll make my first loop through to see who has what, checking the various quality between the booths, and figuring out who seems to have the best prices. I buy on the second loop. I open up one of the free cloth bags that came from this conference or that (it makes it blindingly obvious that I’m involved with church stuff, I think) and start to fill it up; beans, berries, local cheese, wine, veggies, fresh roasted peanuts, fresh bread, fresh everything, really.

I always buy the flowers, last. I’d never really bought cut flowers for myself before this year but, well, I had this glass vase I never used and they looked so good on my dining room table. . . I don’t know what most of the flowers are called. I just look for some colors that I think will look good in my apartment and enjoy them until they fade.

I’m a city kid. Although my mom grew up on a small farm and we visited there when I was growing up, I can’t say that I really paid attention to much accept grasshoppers, playing on what seemed to be the world’s largest swing set and digging holes. The whole idea of foods and flowers growing seasonally wasn’t something that clicked. I ate what was put in front of me with the exception of peas (ew). I didn’t understand that I was eating in food that was “in season.” So, now I’m this grown up kid and, when I go to the grocery store, most of what I regularly purchase I have access to year round. Until this year, I’d functionally forgotten about the idea of there being particular seasons for flowers or food (because, um, its always the season for frozen pizza). There’s a difference between knowing something and really remembering it.

The days are getting shorter and the nights are colder, now. I find myself not wanting to get out of bed as quickly and just lie there longer. It changes the way I pray. In the summers, the prayers are all in the movements of yoga and the greeting of the sun and movement of the day. There’s a clear sense of that interactive, holy presence that flows, grows and births.

These mornings start slower. I put on my thick, terry cloth robe, and start the coffee. As it brews, I might make the bed (slowly) or put away the previous days dishes (slowly) then poor coffee into a cup, sit down and just think. My hand will caress the outside of the mug that’s almost to hot to touch. My eyes may close and I’ll say a prayer full of thanks or pleas or a little of both. Or, I might just sit there and think. God sits on the couch, reading the paper or something like that. I don’t feel prodded or pushed. God is, somehow, that plush, warm robe and that cup of coffee and that quiet.

We are a seasonal people. We’re affected by the fresh berries, the sunflowers, the later sunrises and the rainy, snowy muffling of all that stuff that falls from the sky and gives life to those fresh berries, sunflowers and cups of hot morning coffee. The writer of Ecclesiastes wrote about the largeness of it (“for everything there is a season”) and we’re all wrapped up in both the smallness and the largeness. We feast, we plant, we harvest, we lay fallow. . .