August « 2008 « Black Marks on Wood Pulp / by Corey Vilhauer

The CSA: Week 10

August 4th, 2008

Sometimes, your schedule is thrown off so wildly that you don’t even remember what happened. This happens a lot more frequently when you’ve raised a child for a year – things are forgotten at such wildly quickening speed that you find yourself looking around for the time, as if you simply dropped it somewhere between the car and the front door.

I went to the Farmer’s Market twice this week. Within three hours. And I can barely remember it.

Oh, sure – I had my reasons. I was in the middle of a runaway wild hurricane, a twister caused by an impending First Birthday Party. And I was shuttling back and forth all day on Saturday, unaware of where I was from one moment to the next, working three errands at once, sweating profusely as the heat pressed harder on my skull.

The first time I went to the Market I was simply looking around. My father had never made it down to the booths, so I offered to take him down, knowing full well that I’d be back later to make any actual purchases. We wandered, we gawked, and we discussed the seemingly high price of organically grown vegetables and why the amount is generally worth it.

Later that morning my mother and I took our regularly scheduled trip to pick up our CSA, and it was like a new experience. Everything seemed new, as if I hadn’t been there since last week. And our share sent me further into the past. Back was the kohlrabi. Back was a too-big batch of beets. Beets. You’ve got to be kidding me. Our pepper stock had shrunk, and our cucumbers had as well. It seemed as though we had hit a rough patch in the weekly harvest, leaving us with nothing but the usual.

We’re getting tired of the usual.

Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy the weekly harvest. But at some point, you have to say “NO MORE!” to cabbage and kohlrabi and beets. Give us double carrots. Or, I don’t know, more tomatoes. Even onions – hell, it will give me an excuse to make French onion soup again.

(Which reminds me. Last week’s urge was for the onion soup. This week’s urge comes right off the top of the “now that I’m an omnivore again I can eat this” stack: the BLT. The real BLT. With real bacon. And with that urge in mind, I purchased my first package of non-grilling meat. Beef bacon. I didn’t even know there was such a thing.)

Most of our veggies from last week still sit in the fridge, aside from a handful of cucumbers and other sandwich- or pizza-friendly items. It was rough, to say the least. So we’re on catch-up this week.

Of course, that’s just the thing. I can’t remember what we ate last week. Just like I barely remember going to the Farmer’s Market. Just like I can’t remember anything else from that day. So maybe we’re okay – maybe we’ve forgotten what we ate, and we’re only a few beets from a successful week of vegetable nutrition.

For our own sake, I hope that’s true.

The haul:
Onions
Tomatoes
Beets
Potatoes
Carrots
Various peppers
Cucumbers
Cabbage
Green beans
Kohlrabi

366

August 1st, 2008

366 days.

It was a leap. From young newlyweds to prospective parents. From carefree and often careless days to the ultimate in responsibilities, the most important thing we’ve ever handled. Like handing a gun to a rookie cop, the keys to your first car, magnified by infinity. A life. Yours to raise.

Growing pains. Ice cream binges. A Christmas celebration, followed by a winter. Spring. Summer. 40 weeks. Wait some more. 41. A minor scare. A hospital room. A day of waiting.

And here she is. Beauty, personified.

It was a leap. Our hearts, bounding, rising, like mercury on a hot day, boiling over with emotions. She cried. She slept. We cried. We slept. She kept us from sleeping. We did nothing for six weeks but watch and learn and soak in every moment, every awkward glance, every twitch, every peaceful sleep.

Every peaceful sleep. For her and for us. Every one was golden, an oasis.

It was a leap. A learning curve unlike any other, a lifetime of teaching, things we each take for granted. She learned. A blank slate, slowly coming to grips with the world, a world only as big as her bedroom, the house, the block, the world. She traveled at two weeks, flew at eight months, became a planet, us her satellites; the sun to our solar system.

She sat up. She babbled. She rolled over. She crawled. She stood up. She talked. She walked. She taught us to love something more than ourselves, to care more than we ever thought possible, to throw away the idea of a stupid cliché, proving that something simply can’t be put into words, that the most tired phrases could be true, overused because they were true, thought by millions because they were true.

Sierra is truth. She is patience. She is innocence. She is love. Oh man, is she love.

It was a leap. A leap year. 366 days, from August 1st to August 1st, at 9:55 p.m., an extra day, one in four with the privilege. Everything comes back to August 1st. To the day our lives changed. Her life changed. Our house shifted, our family notched another heartbeat and we fought like hell to make her feel welcome. To feel right at home. To become the center of our home. To take over, dictating every thought and motion and reason and on and on and on.

And I’m still amazed, that I was there to witness it, that I am so lucky to have a perfect little girl, and while I know that every father says the same thing, for me it’s different. It’s perfect. It’s what I feel like I’ve supposed to do my whole life. To be a dad. To be proud. To love her. It’s a perfect role, and every day I hope I’m doing her justice.

366 days, from the first cry to tonight’s last. One year. One life. One proud father. Happy Birthday, Sierra Dawn.

Comments: 2

Issues Considered: Sierra, Vilhauer