Misshapen, Possessed of Many Hues

I woke up in Poughkeepsie.  But I knew I needed to head back over to New Paltz to get some work done.  Borrowed my mom’s car and she asked me to make sure I filled up the tanks and oh, if you can stop and get some nice tomatoes at the farmer’s market.  So when I approached the left turn off of Main St. I turned left and an immediate right into the Sunoco Station.  (I checked and the name of the road is rather disappointing.  Whatever I hoped it might be, it is, in fact, referred to as “The New Paltz Bypass,” which is hardly a name at all.)  By now I know where which side of the car the gas tank’s on.

Back on the ‘NPB’ . . . I do my best to be an attentive citizen and adhere to the 40MPH speed limit, which governs until you pass the police station and approach the high school and an updated posting announces a limit of 30MPH.  A light there captures your speed and throws it back at you and its only appropriate.  It’s a school area.  I’d want people to slow for my kids.  Even if they were on summer break.  And just beyond the school, before the turn there is a farm market, the one I’d had in mind.  

It’s raining.  No one is demonstrating any fresh vegetable outside, but that’s alright.  Inside I consider the tomatoes.  I look at two different kinds that both look appetizing and then notice what must be the heirloom tomatoes in a single, solitary tray.  Flipping them over they aren’t not pretty.  But that’s the idea.  They are supposed to be misshapen, possessed of many hues and maybe even bruised.  But the flavor, will somehow convey the 19^th century, right?  I get some peaches to go with them and before I check out I consider a jar of their own canned pickles.  I’m not normally interested in pickles but soon I’m checking out with an upbeat bald gent who bags my tomatoes and peaches and my pickles and takes more money than I thought would be involved

Pouring rain.  I have the windshield wipers thumping at full pull.  And before I turn into the traffic, I try to get my iPhone to play from the car stereo.  I press one icon and then another  but it’s no use.  This isn’t going to work.  Relax the hold on the dream I just had of playing the Allman Brothers Band’s first album very loudly in this car, I enter the line of traffic and take my place behind the two wet cars in front of me.  And as we get our green and begin to make our turn, miraculously, “Not My Cross to Bear” suddenly sings out from the car stereo above the rain and the wipers and I immediately thumb it up as loud as it will go. 

Tuesday, 8/13/19