22 August 2010

Farmers’ markets make me happy. I love wandering through them, smelling the green things, looking at the vegetables and the fruit, the nuts and the honey. I love to find someone selling things to drink, and walking from booth to booth, sipping lemonade or raspberry spritz. I love weighing out lovely golden or new potatoes, hoisting ears of corn, tasting wonderful cheeses. It makes me happy to see swaths of flowers, to see crisp-crusted loaves of fresh bread, to wander about with a basket or a cloth bag on my arm, just deciding what to get. There’s a sense of connection between people, a sense of connection with the growing, with the seasons. I went to the farmers’ market yesterday. One of the farmers had a picture of his free-range laying chickens, big plump brown chickens, wandering in a flowered field, happily pecking up food. Their eggs are so pretty with brown, speckled shells. Happy chickens, happy eggs.

Celery makes me happy. I love that it crunches. I like to break it and get strands of celery curls. I like the smell of it, all wet and verdant and “celery-y”. It’s fun to eat, plain or with ranch dip or with peanut butter. It’s fun to say. Celery.

Friends make me happy. They make me happy for a bunch of reasons, but today they make me happy for making me laugh. Good friends have a wonderful way of taking something you said to them and making it incredibly funny. Side-achingly funny, sometimes. There’s nothing quite like laughing helplessly, unable to speak, maybe afraid to, not knowing what else your friend will make out of your words. There’s nothing quite like laughing together, and never being able to explain it to anyone else, because it’s just one of those things you and your friend share. It’s a moment built on weeks, months, years of other moments, impossible to describe, but summed up so well in a joyous peal of laughter. Even if it is laughter about crunchy frogs. Ribbit.

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