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A new life season?

deborahavant

I just made a tomato sandwich. Cherokee purple tomato from our roof garden, my sourdough bread toasted, a basil leave torn over it, salt and pepper. Perfect. It will be my last this season. I am leaving for a fieldwork trip in Peru tomorrow and by the time I am back, the weather will have likely changed, the tomatoes will be gone, and we will be looking toward winter. It is breakfast time. I could have had my typical yogurt and fruit and nuts. But I had to have one last tomato sandwich.


I have typically loved fieldwork and never before remember thinking about what I would miss while I was gone. That is true even though I spent nearly 6 months of Lexa’s second year on different trips to Europe and Africa, shoehorned into the times when Tim would be home. The last time I went to Peru, Brandon and Becca moved to Denver while I was gone, and I didn’t really think about missing that. But this time I am so focused on all I will miss.



As we readied to come back from the mountains earlier in the week, I mourned the fact that I would not see Aspen leaves when I returned and lingered longer that I needed to on the porch, soaking up the sun after my coffee was long finished. Now I am gazing at my still green tomatoes and cosmos waving in the sun on my roof and wishing I were staying put. Don’t get me wrong, I still love fieldwork. And this trip is with two dear friends and research partners who I love traveling with, writing with, all of it. But I am still reluctant to go.








Some of it, I know, is worries over my parents. I got a call at 7 this morning from their care company and my stomach dropped, wondering what had gone wrong. It was only a report that the caregiver would be a little late. But I have worried endlessly how they will fare given that it will be harder to reach me. My brother lives near them but is much less likely to respond.


It is more than that, though. In the last year, I have found myself more and more able to resist invitations for travel. The initial excitement is followed by thoughts of the various hassles and things I will miss – in the mountains, in Denver, and, especially, with the kids and Tim. Running into Brandon and Arthur at the grocery store, a quick lunch with Lexa, watching Arthur discover pinecones, baking bread, dinner with Tim on the roof, practicing yoga and coming out to see the sun rising. I am somehow more attentive to all the parts of my life, almost choking me as it pours down my throat, and wanting not to miss a drop. Among the things that I don’t want to miss the most are those mundane happenings that I relish every single day.


After years and years of taking these things as the furniture of my life, I am seeing them and loving them and wanting to savor every bit. Is this a feature of being in my mid-60s? Or maybe a product of seeing my parents lose so many of their mundane practices? No clue but it is interesting to ponder. For now, I will tear myself away, pack up, and look toward appreciating my upcoming adventure.

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