Today was the FIRST DAY of Farmers Market! Always a kind of holiday for me: the return of a Saturday ritual. I get up, throw on clothes, hop in my car, and drive to midtown. I don’t worry about my hair, or what I wear, knowing that although I’m sure to see someone I know (and I did 🙂 ), the kind of people who go to Market don’t care. Me either.

My ‘baby’ sister joined me today. We walked up & down the closed-off street, where stalls of pea shoots, mint, bronze fennel, & lavender jostled w/ green onions, berry tarts, local honey, and fresh-baked bread. After we’d thoroughly exhausted the various offerings, we bought coffee and sat down.

Something almost magic there is about a crisp spring day (it went from 36° to 48° in the space of an hour), hot drinks, and the braiding of those conversational ribbons that women have done for centuries. We watched little girls in hand-knit tutus & elf hats dance to the fiddler. Despite the no-dogs rule, a brown lab & a small terrier mix walked w/ their families. And through it all, my sister & I caught up.

I told her about pea shoots. She told me how her classes are going. I processed my beloved’s health; she processed her responsibilities (are these something I need to worry about?). And we sipped latte & café con leche, happy to be outside, at the Market, together.

I came home w/ a couple of bags full of plants to set out today, as well as mint & pea shoots. I also came home w/ a full heart, lifted from its winter doldrums and quite ready to begin this new season fresh & happy. It’s the best possible product from the farmers’ market, and the one thing you can’t buy.