small pleasures

Got a bag of peaches as part of our CSA share last week.  Have spent the last several decades thinking I did not like peaches -- at least whole and fresh and uncooked.  Something about the skin, the feel of that peach fuzz rubbing across my teeth, my gums, my tongue.  Like nails on a chalkboard.  Years ago Jessica Snyder and I would take the canoe down towards the Lockharts' farm, paddling through clouds of sapphire dragonflies, keeping an eye out for turtles sunning themselves on deadheads, hissing over lily-pads growing up in clumps against the surface of the lake.  We would pack a couple cans of soda (Grandma's discount Shasta in strawberry or pineapple or grape) and a couple nectarines.  Always nectarines because I hated peaches.  That fuzz.

Got a bag of peaches the other day and thought about making a cobbler or a chilled summer soup or a sauce to serve warm over vanilla ice cream.  Instead left them in a bowl on the counter and have found myself snatching one up on passes through the kitchen, biting into them while leaning over the sink to catch the juices dripping from my teeth, down my chin.

The peach fuzz seems not to be bothering me, and the deep pleasure of eating them whole in random moments on my way from bedroom to closet to front door and back again is one I had not expected.

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Another Jessica and Andrew and I met for brunch yesterday afternoon, and then afterwards meandered our way back to their apartment for an afternoon of watching Black Dynamite and going through Jessica's handbag collection to see if there was anything that struck my fancy (girlish things again -- there are simply situations in which my trust old messenger bag just won't do).  Andrew started feeling ill and went off to lie down for a bit but when I turned to Jessica and quietly said that perhaps it would be best if I left, she shook her head and said, "No, no need -- you're family!"

Other than missing Andrew's company it was a lovely afternoon and it warmed my heart to be thought of as such.