The kids pick their own tomatoes and basil off the vines and bushes that have, in three short months, overtaken their once-huge terracotta pots. I am sloppy; I quickly slice the larger tomatoes and the buffalo mozzarella, throw it onto a plate and shake olive oil and salt atop the pile. We walk barefoot back out into the garden, around the back of the house, and sit in the shade on the upside-down red canoe. There are no forks. Why should we need forks? We eat with our fingers and talk about next Saturday, when we’ll be inside this canoe paddling up the big river from Russian Gulch.
But the heady tomato-basil-olive oil fruitiness anchors us firmly to the present; and before long, we’re nothing but giggles and dirty, greasy fingers leaving shiny happy prints atop the dusty canoe. Maybe the slick fingerprints will make the boat glide faster, we postulate.
64 Replies to “A Small Plate of Afternoon”