Great Expectations
Life is full of expectations, dreams and plans. Some come to fruition, others fade or change, or completely fall to pieces. So few things live up to the image our minds create. We all know about the post-Christmas let-down. As a child my favorite part of Christmas was before the gifts were opened, not after. Before, anything could be in those colorful packages, anything. After, all was revealed- and though many gifts were truly wonderful, none matched the rich imagination of my childhood.
I have discovered one thing that lives up to all that is expected of it. The homegrown tomato. Yes, that sounds simple, humble even, and maybe that’s the key. But in the depths of winter, I think quite often about those summer tomatoes, with their rich orangy-red skins, and acidic sweetness still warm from the sun. Store-bought tomatoes don’t even deserve the name- pale, hard things that they are, with little or no taste.
In early spring we planted little tomato plants with promising names- Early Girl, Jet Star, and Super Sweet; with intriguing names- Cherokee Purple, Juliet and Keepsake; and names that made me smile- Mr. Stripy, Jolly, and Lemon Boy. I planted one Roma, revealing my interest in canning without wanting to get in too deep. We staked and caged and mulched these little plants, we fed them with chicken manure and bone meal. Soon they grew large and sturdy, and their small yellow blossoms called out to the bees. Green tomatoes formed and hung there for what seemed like months while I checked every day for signs of that first blush of warm color.
Jolly lived up to its name: smallish pointed rosy fruits hung like ornaments- the first to ripen. That first tomato of summer is like no other- warm, sweet, tangy. A gentle pop as my teeth break the skin and the first taste takes me back to my mother’s garden. I can close my eyes and feel myself standing on my seven year-old, sturdy legs, my feet in stubby sandals, my hair tickling my face. I open my eyes again and I’m in my own garden, the tomato plants nearly groaning with fruit. We heap tomatoes in bowls, put them in salad, read up on how to freeze and can them. We offer them to country neighbors, who turn them away because their kitchen counters are sagging from the weight of their own tomatoes. We offer them to our city friends who exclaim over them as though we had given them gold.
By the end of summer the plants will be withered, the few remaining tomatoes will be splitting and sagging a bit. We’ll give them to the chickens who will chortle and cluck with excitement. We’ll be complacent then, used to our wealth of tomatoes. But come January, I’ll have a restless stirring in my mind, a dissatisfaction with what the stores have to offer. The seed catalogs will arrive and the anticipation of spring, of green things, and that first tomato will take hold- a true promise, one that will deliver.
1 comment July 27th, 2010
