2008-09-30

Harvest

Have you ever eaten a perfect peach? No, really, have you? Are you sure? Most people are lucky if once in a lifetime they eat a perfect peach.

I have a magic power. I have contrived, in the past week, to eat over one dozen perfect peaches. In among a life of cars and cubicles, gas prices and taxes, I have included this superhuman accomplishment.

And I did not do it emptily. I did not arrange it and then let it pass unheeded. To each bite I paid rapt attention, and discerned with intense concentration the papery flat of the outer fuzz, the sharp tartness of the inner surface of the skin, the miraculous flesh which achieves the feat of being at once uniform and smooth and yet delicately fibrous. I have examined the mechanics of the pressure of my front teeth against the nestled stone, and the flow of the juice from the compressed flesh surrounding it. And that is the magic: not that I have eaten perfect peaches, but that I have done so mindfully.

And I send you this secret message, this missive which no other could comprehend, to inform you that this magic power belongs to you, too. Yes, I mean you.

Use it wisely.

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