The concrete was slick with rain. Yellow leaves shimmered from underneath my sneakers; golden, treasure, everything precious. I walked along the length of the southern park blocks, not fast; very slow. Crows dipped into my path, settling like a heavy foreshadowing just ahead. One even walked a few feet with me, keeping time with my steps. The sea gulls have come inland for the winter. They cry over head and pick at trash with the pigeons. However, hey don't seem to be too friendly with the Crows, who keep their distance.
I like going to the market when its been raining, everything is bright and vibrant and there are less people, traveling with my growing bag is easier.
A few feet before the entrance is a man who plays the trumpet, a sparse lonely, andante and sad. He once played in a mariachi band and the absence of the other instruments hangs heavy in the wet trees. He only has nickles in his cup.
By now the trees have switched from Birch to mostly Maple, and the flaming foliage covers the grounds like a carpet, magnificent and priceless in value. Red, red orange, red yellow, even one whose red was advancing from the inside out, chasing the yellow out to the still green tips. Autumnal rainbow. I would have collected them and come home with an armload but I was worried a dog might have peed on them. So, I let them be.
Precisely at the entrance is a man selling The Street Beat. He's always there, today wearing a knit hat with a pom pom ontop because its turned cold. "Yet another high pressure sales pitch!" He always says, except for today. "The Koch brothers would buy this paper! Don't be like them! Get one on your way out!" I bought one then and there. He has a poem printed on page two. "I wrote it on my honeymoon" he said regretfully.
I stop at the same three booths I always stop at. No samples for me today, I try not to do that every week. I bought a coffee, which was a mistake because its hard to juggle pounds of produce and a hot beverage on your own, but I wanted it and I'm read The Awakening by Kate Chopin and it felt appropriate to give into a whim.
"Its the Babushkas!" He said as he ducked behind the second register, bearing coffee for his booth partner. We had been chatting while she tallied my burdock and carrots, and stopped to quickly survey each other, a moments hesitation before we saw he was teasing us with our scarves wrapped around our heads. Turns out we'd both lost our favorite beanies and had to make do in the chill. I walked home, warmed with coffee and the idea of me as a Babushka bearing produce, wearing grandpa pants.
I took this picture of myself with my produce bag, but it doesn't do the weight of it justice. Zoey, trying to devise a way onto the new plant shelf. I haven't taken a picture of myself using the timer in some months, which I feel explains my headlessness.
My bag was bursting with radishes, carrots, butternut squash (mmm soup forever) onions and more. So much more. I've been buying so many different squashes my cupboards are beginning to overflow. I still have a sweet meat (hate the name) to try, as well as a mystery one I bought from Persephone's booth at the recommendation of the dude in the Davy Crocket hat.
(This feels silly to be writing like this. I'm mostly just trying to remember. Remember what I saw, remember how, exactly to write. If these seems trite, or vain, or tired, I apologize. Don't tell me. I'll get better with more frequent use.)
-A.H.
