inverted, indoor tomatoes...

One of the strangest things I have read recently was a note from an organic gardener in New England offering advice on ripening tomatoes. Here is the essence: If you have a lot of unripened tomatoes on the vine you can bring your plants inside after uprooting them. Shake off most of the dirt before hanging them upside down in a reasonably warm place indoors. "They will ripen almost as well as if left outside." 

To say that I was apprehensive would be an understatement. How was such a thing possible? But I am a novice with beginner's mind through and through. So, that is exactly what I did: uprooted the three mature tomato plants, maintained a modest amount of roots, shook the dirt off and hung them in the basement. And I'll be damned if they aren't ripening after just three days!

Its kind of a trip to walk downstairs to do the laundry and be surrounded by these inverted, uprooted tomato plants. Kind of fun, too. If this holds up we will have another 25 fresh tomatoes by week's end at just about the same time we will get our first frost. Learning how all of this works is fascinating. I have my two resource texts now and am beginning to get a handle on how to help our sandy soil, too. Next year will be better than this year albeit still part of my learning curve.

For some reason this poem by Karen Paul Holmes, "Rental Cottage, Maine," keeps popping up in relationship to this year's tomatoes. Back in the early days of being a dad, husband, pastor, writer, and musician I tried to hide away my failings, faults and wounds. I couldn't, of course, but I sure tired to do so. Years later I learned from my children that this striving to look perfect in public made them feel crazy. Some insights are hard won - painful - and blessedly humbling. Most of the times these days I revel in my mistakes. Foolishness. And try to honor my massive learning curve. It is a relief to know I don't have to be perfect. 

We thought we were the perfect family—
loyal, stable, a brick wall you couldn't topple
with a wrecking ball. Parents dependable
as the frozen Minute Maid juice
we squeezed from cardboard cans and drank
mornings, reconstituted.

We'd come to this place just to be together.
October in Ogunquit, record heat,
no need for the sweaters we'd packed.
Dad had died but Mom, in her 80s, sat
pouring green tea, our wicker chairs
on the small porch, six sets
of knees touching.

She didn't mean to mention
Dad's first wife.

To our collective what?
she sputtered lasted a year, before the war,
her name: Phyllis.
Remember that chest in the basement?
It was hers.

Some moments passed, then mutely
we agreed to let it go.
Radium glowed green in our brains
but didn't burn. The knowing, a relief:
We didn't have to be perfect.

The August-warm wind felt pleasant
and odd. We sat on that porch,
orange leaves pinwheeling down the street.