Market Day

The summer's long, humid days stretch on. Children in the street putter about on their bicycles, even their shouts have lost vigor. Paper and pencils, bright colored folders and lunchboxes fill the aisles at the stores. Days without routine blend into weeks, punctuated only by rain.

Today, we visited the local farmer's market: several vegetable stalls covered with canopies, a table of honey, and one of goat milk fudge. We bring our bag to carry our produce home, turning away the ubiquitous plastic sacks. The young man at the eggplant stall comments that it gives him hope to see more and more people with "green bags." I wish for a market basket, with a comfortable handle. We purchase a dollar's worth of roma tomatoes, an eggplant to fit my cupped hands, local honey for toast with butter, and a basket of okra pods. One feels hopeful at a farmer's market, however small, for the earth's bounty, for those who plant and reap, and for the long market tradition continued for yet another season.

Our routines begin to fall into place: Wednesday afternoon to market and library. In colored ink, the words march across the calendar.