Do You Need Some Cucumbers?

It's nice to know that in the midst of significant life changes...some things remain the same. It will - someday - rain again, and we'll complain about the rain after a couple of days. Babies will creep, then crawl, then walk and we'll marvel at that progress like it's never been done. The dishes have to be washed, dried, and put away. Clothes washed, dried, ironed. Grass mowed.

And - in true southern fashion - people in our neck of the woods will offer cucumbers, squash, okra, tomatoes, peas - whatever they have, they'll share. That gift of sharing the bounty of their gardens touches me. It makes me so happy I live where I do and so grateful the people whose lives intersect with mine are who they are. Solid, dependable, generous, humble.

Today I visited with a sweet, precious friend. She's one of the smartest, most accomplished women I know. She's successful, self-assured, and funny as all get out. And - she's stuck in her dissertation process. I typed and cried my way through my dissertation three years ago, and it's a lonely, frustrating experience that seems to grow dendrites and take on a nightmarish life of its own. It was like I was stuck in one of those corn mazes people create around Halloween and there really was no way out. So I understand her frustration and I offered to help. She would do the exact same thing for me.

So as we worked through fifty or so pages of corrections (dissertation committees want it right), her phone rang. It was her mother calling. And this is what she said:

"Ask Vicky if she needs any cucumbers."

There it was. The offering. The heartfelt offering of food. It's how southerners show their love, show their appreciation, soothe heartbreaks, connect with one another. This beautiful, gracious, southern Mama brought me a bag of cucumbers - just picked and still warm from the sun.

It was the best gift.

So this evening Francie and I had fresh cucumber salad (made the way my mama makes it), fresh tomato salad (tomatoes from Doug Spradlin's farm), and new potatoes, also from Spradlin's farm.

Comfort food - made much better by the fact that the cucumbers were a gift and that I know the man whose labors produce those sweet, juicy tomatoes and heavenly new potatoes.

Some things change, and that hurts. But that hurt is tempered by the wonderful things that remain the same.

Thanks Leah's Mama...the cucumbers were delicious.