Kinda, Sorta Sick

The tomatoes are finally starting to get color. I'd say we'll be eating a ripe tomato this week. For a gardener, this is a peak experience. It would be so lovely if we got enough this year to make at least a few bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches. Which must be eaten on white bread, of course. With mayonnaise. Or in Mr. Moon's case, Miracle Whip. 
I don't see the point in the lettuce part of the sandwich though and I skip it on mine. It is nothing but a distraction, a dilution, a taking-away of the very essence of what the sandwich is about which is the juicy burst of warm tomato with a crispy piece of fried salty bacon. The bread must be white because again, grains and nuts and seeds and all those fibrous, nutritious things are a distraction. 
It's all about the purity and simplicity of the tastes, combined so as to enhance and compliment each other. Don't be throwing a bunch of other flavors and textures in there. That's just wrong. 

So I figured out why I took such a long nap yesterday- by golly I was coming down with something. I started feeling pretty shitty about the time I was making supper and went to bed early. I slept forever and when I got up I still felt like crap. I haven't done a damn thing today and that's okay. I even took another nap. I don't have a lot of cold symptoms or any real aches or pains, just watery eyes that feel a little achy and my skin feels fever-sensitive and I do have a tiny bit of a fever. Just enough to barely register. But no energy at all. 
I planned to work on my leaf platter while taking it easy but I didn't even have the energy to take that on. My other choice of an activity would be to do needlework of some kind while watching television but just the thought of having to pick something out to watch made me exhausted. 
So, okay. I did pick beans but I HAD to. And it was still coolish and there weren't too many. 

Now of course they're starting to fill the refrigerator and I need to can them but again- oh god. Not now. Maybe tomorrow. It's not that challenging an activity. And boy does it make me feel productive. 

So I just finished reading (with my ears) a novel by Kiran Desai. The title is "The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny" and it's quite long. At first I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to hang in with it. There are so many characters and it can get confusing but Desai is a fine author and there were times I just let a thing or two go and caught it back up later like a skipped stitch in a piece of knitting that you can go back and pick up. The two main characters, unsurprisingly, are Sunny and Sonia, both from India, both who go to the United States for an education who meet each other back at home in India. Sonia's grandfather had actually approached Sunny's family for an arranged marriage between the two of them when they were still quite young, but that did not come close to happening when the idea was presented. 

I won't go into it all. I'll just say that there was some beautiful writing, there were twists and there were turns, there was an insane artist, there was time spent in Mexico as well as New York City and of course, in India. I loved the way Desai was able to weave so many things together and with a bit of this and a bit of that (including a tiny bit of magical realism), the story unfolded like a, well...magnolia blossom. 

One of my favorite things in the book is what a widowed woman says several times when she is addressing her deceased husband which was something like, "I am going get old and die before I ever have my happiness!" 
I feel like I can think about that statement in many ways and I've never, ever thought of life that way- that we have a period of time when life is just hard and a struggle but if all goes as it should, there will come a time of sweetness, of happiness.

And what I keep coming back to is that I have had my happiness and I do have my happiness and the best thing about it is that I am aware of it. That I recognize it, I acknowledge it, I cherish it. And of course that happiness, that sweetness, does not show up as winning the lottery or going on a dream vacation. It appears as one tiny thing after another, one little spark or spot of beauty, of goodness, of humor, of humbleness, of unexpected joy, of a song played at just the right time, as the perfect tomato and bacon sandwich, as a line in a book that hits you in the heart. 
But you have to slow down enough to take these things in. We have to pay attention. 
We have to look up. 
And you know- we have to look down, as well. Sometimes I despair at all I know I am missing in the immediate world around me. 
Oh, Ms. Moon, how you do go on.

Here's today's magnolia picture.

That's one of the two Glen brought home yesterday. The one I picked three days ago has turned a soft, velvety brown but I am leaving it where it is for now. It still makes me happy. It is part of my happiness.

Love...Ms. Moon