Past Present

The apricots are coloring. I remember early mornings on the farm when the smell of ripening fruit filled the atmosphere — to breathe at that hour meant taking the combined scent of apricots, peaches, and plums deep into the lungs and into the bloodstream. The magic I felt, balanced my practical concerns with the infinite and set me working at a soul’s pace. And though I left behind that life at the ripe old age of thirty-one, it is still powerfully present in the one I am living now. And the one I am living now, a thousand times changed, reduced, and magnified, sheds light on the many I lived then. And by that light, this year, if I am still alive when the apricots are ready, I will perhaps taste even more fully some degree of subtlety I missed then. And by taste, it is quite possible I mean imagine.

July 10, 2020

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