Tomato

Work is done for the day and I'm at home, making dinner.  At 7:30 in the evening, the light is just beginning to fade, and fat, yellow sun is shining it's day's end glow into the window above my futon. I stand at the kitchen counter with my back to it, slicing an heirloom tomato that is the same color as a ruby.  The fresh, rich aroma from the juice reaches me as I take the first slice.

I lift the slice to my mouth, take a bite.  And I am instantly transported to a different time; a time when I was a boy, and I was helping my mother make dinner on a summer evening.  And then I go to another time; a summer evening when I was with Kate, and we were standing in the garden, eating tomatoes right from the vine.  Like a time machine with a broken control knob, the slice of tomato has me reeling through the decades, like a game of hopscotch.

For a moment, I am confused.  For a moment, I think this time is like those other times.  But this time, when my tomato slice time machine brings me back to it, is like no other I've ever lived in.  This moment in the summer of 2016, I am an aging man living in a studio apartment in a suburb of Eugene, Oregon.  I am a social worker, a retired rock climber, a practitioner of yoga, a student of the arts.

Deep yellow sunshine glows around me and a hummingbird flys by the window.

Every shadow, every light beam, every taste and smell in this moment is perfectly unique.