On my way home from work, I was rejoicing about my four-day weekend.  I was on a three-lane interstate preparing to exit when the truck in front of me braked.  Mildly irritated, I braked to avoid rear-ending him.  Then I saw a creature running for his life- an opossum.

(editor's note: opossum or possum?  What's in a name?  I tried to google and other word nerds are also stymied.  I shall use "possum" from this point in my story)

So he somehow made it across the second lane of traffic, despite the fact it was rush hour.  I continued to watch him in my rear-view mirror and felt panicky and hopeful that he'd make it across.  He was so frightened at this point that in his all-out mad gallop, he stumbled into the third lane.  I saw a huge RV headed for him.  The RV didn't swerve nor appear to brake.  I can't blame the driver; it happened in a split second and he/she may not have had time to react.  The huge vehicle bore down on the creature running for his life and I watched as a big black tire swallowed him whole.

I flicked on my turn signal and exited.

Even though the entire event took only a second or two, I was wide-eyed with a sort of disbelief.  That animal died for no cause.  He spent the last moments of his life in abject terror.  The only good thing to say is that his death was probably relatively painless.  But his carcass will lie in the road and be run over time and time again until it is unrecognizable.

I drove in silence for a few minutes, then inexplicably started to cry.  I think it started when I saw him stumble in his panicked state.  He didn't seem like an ugly, smaller version of an ROUS, he seemed like a creature running for his life.  Sure, I'm smarter than he.  But do I have more purpose?  I'm not going to wax philosophical here, because I didn't while I drove home.  I could think of nothing but how sad it was that he was so scared and then so dead.

I came home and petted my sweet, bratty doggie and wondered if the possum had babies that will starve now.

I could make this some powerfully poignant reflection on life and death, but I won't. The possum died and I cried.  How weird is that?

As I left home this morning, I was mourning the loss of a trip to Burning Man.  I saw the culture class epicenter moving ever westward as I drove southward to Kentucky.

I don’t like Kentucky.  If you’re from New York or LA, you are probably laughing at my Indiana snobbery.  Indiana and Kentucky are more similar than dissimilar.  I didn’t know until I was an adult that the “stupid Kentuckian” jokes were told as “stupid Hoosier” jokes south of the Ohio.  But my prejudice still surfaces and I prefer Indiana.  Amusingly, I prefer Indiana because Indianapolis doesn’t seem as prejudiced as Louisville.

But lately I’ve been luxuriating in All Things Cornfield.  As I was driving a few weeks ago, I noticed that the corn was so high I couldn’t see the roof of my house from the road.  I passed fields of soybeans and large family gardens full of ripening produce.  I saw wizened farmers with handmade “tomato’s” signs and smiled for loving their simpleness.  I decided to relish Indiana and its changing seasons: no longer mourning the shortening days but instead living in each moment.

Two weeks ago, my mother brought me fresh sweet corn.  She’d traded it from the receptionist at her doctor’s office.  I joked that soon she’d be paying the doctor with a new goat or something, but the corn was sweeter than any I’ve tasted in years.

Last week, my parents came to my house with a batch of tomatoes from their garden, freshly picked and in a recycled cereal bag.  I cut into the first one.  Under the skin was a deep, deep, garnet red of such beauty I almost photographed it.  The sun was setting and beams of gold light cut into my kitchen, highlighting the tomato flesh.  I quartered five tomatoes, sprinkled them with kosher salt, and ate them warm as I stood in the waning sunlight filtered through the corn in my backyard.

Every day for two weeks, one of my coworkers has brought in produce from her garden.  Tomatoes, cucumbers for pickling, yellow squash, eggplant.  She places them on a filing cabinet free for anyone to take.  Some people don’t "get" it, but I see her as caring and loving of all of us as she offers us the fruits of her labor.

So back to today.  I’m not wanting to leave my comfy home, leave my doggy with my parents, and hike to Kentucky to listen to folks talk badly about their friends or gab unapprovingly about other people who aren’t like them.  I pouted that my desire to be artistic was going to be suppressed by a weekend of shuffling closer to losing all creative touch.

Then I came here and unwound a little.  When the heat of the day was subsiding, we adjourned to the vegetable garden and started picking tomatoes for dinner.  The earthy smell of tomato vines took me back to being eight in my dad’s garden.  I would pick vegetables with my siblings and it would inevitably end in a game of chase with rotten tomatoes flying!

We picked tomatoes, hot peppers, watermelon.  We discussed pickling beets and the best kinds of refrigerator pickles- English cukes with vinegar, salt, garlic, onions.  And yes, despite being triple the age I remembered, a rotten tomato was thrown.  We ate a cold supper in the kitchen, just like Mrs. Belden used to make for Brian, Mart, Bobby, and Trixie.  (If I’ve lost you there, we’ll catch up later.)  We quietly read the day’s paper or magazines.  Someone mentioned watermelon and the men walked to the garden, peering at the melon patch in the twilight.  Under the vine-covered arbor, we spread newspapers on a metal wicker table and quartered the two-foot-long melon with a machete.  We ate with abandon in a way only acceptable in the outdoors: stickily slurping melon juice and spitting seeds onto the newspaper.  I don’t know if the partial darkness helped us all feel masked, but with the lax manners, we also talked more.  We laughed and carried on and I ate a pound or two of sweet pink melon without caring that the juice dripped down my chin.

I guess my point, if this is pointy at all, is that I found beauty in the simple things.  I allowed myself to live slowly, to retreat from the concept of Big Art by Big Artists, and saw the gorgeous color that the real world can bring.  I saw my narcissistic angsty pouting as an excuse to feel sorry for myself, which is possibly one of the most useless feelings to have.  I realized that I could take what I saw and translate it into art of my own, even if it only becomes the e-words on the e-page you’re reading.  I saw that I could drink in these experiences and enjoy the flavors and textures presented to me by the bountiful harvest of the Midwest.

Even in Kentucky.

I spent most of last week on a vegan/vegetarian diet out of respect for my houseguests.  It’s not a stretch for me; I give up eating meat every year for Lent.  I found out last year that there is actually a Catholic initiative around this practice to go beyond the obligation into personal penance of giving up meat altogether.

I used to give up fish, too; I feel like fish are second-class citizens in the fight against inhumane treatment of animals.  Most fish can’t cry out in pain nor show expressions of fear (I guess eyelids are the key).  They are caught with a huge net, then suffocate.  In “better” circumstances, they are hooked and released.  I think catch and release is awful because of the injuries it causes.

I changed my mind on giving up fish when I realized the reason to eat fish on Friday is to remind us all that we are fishers of men (Matthew 4:19).  It is purposeful and respectful.  It is one of the things that I do in my daily life that keeps me reminded of God.  So my preferred source of fish is me: go deep-sea fishing, hook the fish, then put them in a cooler of ice water so they slowly go into torpor instead of gasping to death. It’s the same technique I’ve used on my pet fish who are suffering to death.  I was telling a friend I’ve never practiced euthanasia with a pet, but I guess I have.  If I don’t kill one fish, he/she’ll die in the tank and infect all the rest of them.

If you know the horror of cattle feed lots (and the E. coli from cows packed into tiny, unhappy spaces and covered in dung), you’d do what I’ve done and buy ¼, ½, or a whole cow for your family from a local farmer who lets the cattle roam free and doesn’t use feed lots or antibiotics.  I buy only organic, free-range eggs so that I’m not buying from hens that are mutilated to be squeezed into tight cages where they can’t even walk.  I buy organic chicken as well.

I cook a lot to avoid the overprocessed foods in our culture.  We add chemicals, strip nutrients, and inject color to make foods look more vibrant.  So I buy whole spices, whole chickens, whole grains, you see what I mean.  I shop for organic even when the prices are outrageous.

I was feeling pretty good about myself until this week.  When someone I truly respect says “no life is worth a flavor,” it gives me pause.  Am I doing the right thing after all?  Then, quite coincidentally, my best friend announces she’s becoming a vegetarian.

I felt vaguely angry.  I searched myself for the answer, then asked Carlton why I felt this way.  He said, “because you know that you’ll never be able to do that.”  He was right.  I felt left in the dust by people I love and respect.  I want to do what is right but I am never going to measure up to their sacrifice and commitment.  No, life is not a competition, especially among friends; however, I can’t help but feel like they are doing what I wish I could do.  Frankly, my best friend has a much harder road than the California boys: the Midwest is not kind to vegetarians.

Carlton and I always have fish on Fridays, so he suggested we add another dietary day and eating vegetarian one day a week.  I haven’t picked what day, but it is a start, I guess.