Yeah. Sure. Sure.
“If you have a big enough dictionary, just about everything is a word.”
-Dave Barry
The Sunday sun is mid-sky on a clear autumn day. I’m standing outside the Saratoga Farmers Market smoothie stand, thinking and waiting for my order. Thinking. Thinking about how my Grandpa put salt on his granny smith apples (maybe he still does), the economic sustainability of free pickle samples and the unquestionable merits of fresh air, polyester and machine-built singletrack. Also, I’m casually wondering who gave my Granny that green sign that she put in front of her farmhouse that said “Life in the Fast Lane”.
The industrial blender whirrs and a one-man band plays “Brian Wilson” from the Bare Naked Ladies twenty yards away. The woman at the register cheerily half-shouts over the din, “What has been the best part of your weekend?!”. Okay…fair play. Wasn’t expecting that but I am indeed at a farmers market. Think. My weekend had been a typically beautiful blur of the breezy, mundane, difficult and absurd. Conversations, connections, fails abound…Think.
How about on Saturday when Adam and I headed out on bikes toward Vermont? What looked like a typical rail trail on the map was indeed a wonderful ribbon of flat gravelly road from Salem to Granville. Adam brought his road bike, I brought my gravel bike which was a bit of an oversight on my part which I dutifully paid for. Foliage ran from red to orange to yellow beyond meandering streams. Endorphins pumped as pumpkins were pedaled past and I managed to make it home without needing to call to get picked up. Exhaustion. Cue laying in the driveway I had left just 75 miles earlier. The clouds drift by indifferently above. I’m happy laying on the pavement for a minute and the kids laugh and outline my cold body with their sidewalk chalk. They’re ready for a fun day and I’m basically alive and fully surrendered. Riding with two is important.
What about on Sunday, while the kids played on the playground? Just beyond us, a solo tennis player shows up early to a match under moody dark skies. I realize that he’s getting ready to play tennis by himself. Cue tennis ball being tossed into the air, overhead serve, grunt, ball hitting the net. Another ball is retrieved from his pocket, bounced three times to the ground, backhand serve, over the net this time. The player walks to retrieve the balls before serving from the other side. Overhead serve, grunt, net, backhand serve, retrieve balls. Repeat. Repeat. This goes on for as long as Mae likes to be pushed on the swing which is roughly 30 minutes. His friends show up with a measuring tape for adjusting the net height. One makes a few cranks to the hand crank while the other measures, then re-measures. High socks, hearty rallys and jokes ensue. Tennis with two is important.
What about on Sunday at Ella’s field hockey game in Johnstown as I sit unwittingly behind two hunter friends on the opening day of bow season? “How’d ya make out up dear?”, one friend asks. “Well…Got sat up in the stand on the feed plot ‘for dawn but justa howlin’ cold in dear. A coupla turkeys popped up and den a few doughs rolled in until they got really hawky. Sure enough I saw that coyote come bouncing threw and then my day was up.” The field hockey game marched on as the girls smashed the pickle ball back and forth and through cones. Hunting stories with two is important.
What about on Saturday at breakfast when Will had snot…
I look up and the smoothie woman is staring expectantly at me. She has my smoothie in her right hand.
“I had a pretty good honey crisp earlier.” I manage.
“Yeah. Sure. Sure…You still need to pay sir.”
“Yeah. Sure. Sure.”
木漏れ日,
Andy
