And yet...
no one else, in the history of all creation, ever stood at the exact latitude/longitude coordinates as I did today at 5:30 PM on October 1, 2009.
I, alone, was there on Queen Anne hill in Seattle, surrounded by friends and strangers at the last farmer's market of the season.
Only I had a conversation--facing east--about the intersection of art and food while rain drops pelted me, and only my shoulder felt the weight of my Book Culture bag filled with chanterelle mushrooms and the last huckleberries of the season and two loaves of bread and a book. Only my back went rigid when I saw Becky throwing vegetables into a cast-iron skillet, since only I have spent a lifetime protecting my own skillet from being touched by anything but cornbread batter.
Only I took a picture of Keren and her little boy with my iPhone camera to distract him from the fact that he was fussy, and only I had the combination of a Banh Mi sandwich and a cup of burnt sugar gelato for supper in my car, pointing west.
And now I am home, between the seasons, with tomatoes bubbling on the stove, since they arrived in my CSA box somewhat worse for the wear. I'm doing the unoriginal save: chopping them up and turning them into sauce, as generations of thrifty cooks have done before me.
No grand art, this.
But it's my performance, and no one else takes this particular spoon in hand, to stir this day's collection of memories into tomorrow's sustenance.
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