This morning, my last in Boulder for a long while, I did not pack my things, or visit some scenic location, or say goodbye to my friends. I had a paper bag on my desk, and before I did anything else - before the bags were zipped up, the keys returned, or the dishes washed, that bag would have to have its contents emptied. Into my stomach.
This was the bag of peaches that I bought about a week ago. I'd been waiting all this time for the peaches to get ripe, but today I had to eat them right away, because I don't believe they ;et you take peaches in as carry-on baggage. \I found about three out of four of the peaches were sour and lacked a peachy sweetness. Two peaches from the nine I ate this morning were really beautiful tasting.
I keep on trying to construct a metaphor out of this. Leaving is incredibly hard. And not just the annoying practical things like putting my things away and transporting them a couple states away. It's so difficult to pick up everything that I've known for the past couple months and leave it behind the airport gates. I will close my eyes, take a nap on the plane, and leave in a different world. I don't think that's too much of a stretch or anything.
I suppose I should feel a certain urge to sum up my life here. But as I was watching some cartoons on my computer this morning, cutting away the bruised parts of the latest peach with a plastic knife, depoisting the segments of discarded peach on a sheet of newspaper already havey with peach pits and damp with juice, I didn't think about much. Maybe because there is so much to think about, and so much to do. Maybe it's because right then - I was just eating peaches.
I'll be out of internet contact for about a week, but I will be able to check my e-mail intermittently. I will not be out of peach contact, though. I will return, of course, with more peach adventures.
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