My Garden... the Time Machine

Any number of things can "take you back"... to a different time and place.

A song... a scent... a voice.

This past week... my garden caused the wrinkle in time. 

okra... yellow crook-neck squash... zucchini... tomatoes... black-eyed peas

I watched my "Nanny" (Colorado Dad's Mom) pull these same plump treasures from the ground, just a few miles South of where my little house sits. 

Followed behind as her apron pockets filled up and spilled over. 

I helped her hull black-eyed peas... our fingers forcing out the fresh green kernels.

Hers weathered and wise... mine small and nimble.

The thing that carried me away today were the sounds...

As I sat on my own porch hulling peas, I closed my eyes and listened.

I let my ears travel... tilted my head toward a different porch...  a different garden.

A two-story structure on Lee Street in Red Oak, Texas that my Nandaddy built.

Faintly at first... but the frequency quickly grew stronger.

...the aluminum screen door on the front porch ~ tension spring set just a little too tight ~ quickly popping closed with a hollow rattle... the drone of the window unit ~ the drip drip drip of condensation outside on the black soil... the scrape of the sliding glass door... the slowing down of a vehicle ~ tires changing surfaces from asphalt to gravel... the cuckoo clock ticking away seconds above the kitchen table... the internal whir right before the tiny door would click open and little bird would sing out... the startling ring of the baby blue rotary phone... the sound of The Price is Right on the television... her laughter... Nandaddy's voice from another room...
water running in the kitchen sink...

Do you have a place you'd like to visit again?  Close your eyes...
Listen.  Find the symphony where you thought there was only silence.

As sit on my front porch... pinching peas into one bowl... hulls and strings in another... I don't need my eyes to do this chore... my fingers work by touch alone...

I help Oldest Son study for his 7th-grade Texas History final...

I listen intently to this moment... the cadence of questions and answers... repetition of troublesome facts... wind blowing...

I hope he will remember the sounds of this day...

studying at a picnic table stacked with yellow and green...

dirt still clinging...

little brother popping in and out of doorway distracting...

the zipping by of an occasional hummingbird... his mother's voice asking and answering... wheat ready for harvest whispering sweet nothings in our ears.