Watermelon

Today I went to the Del Mar farmer’s market and bought a watermelon from Ray’s Subtropical stand.  Ray didn’t know if it would be red or yellow, but he said it would be sweet and it was ripe and ready to eat now.  That was enough for me.  I took it home, and cut it open.  It was yellow.  I prefer red—the color of watermelon in my youth--but it doesn’t matter.  What matters is the texture—crisp and crunchy—and the flavor—sweet with depth, complexity, and fragrance.  It did pretty well on these counts, just not quite as deep and rich as a red can be, and a little more mellow. 

Every time I eat a watermelon, I think of Janie Jones and one spectacularly hot, humid summer Saturday in the country in Mississippi.  Janie Jones was the grandmother of my church when I was growing up.  When we first moved to Zachary, Louisiana, when I was 3, she was already the one who ran things at the church, where my dad was going to now be pastor.  She did the flowers in front of the pulpit every Sunday, and the music minister, Wayne Vincent, lived at her house, where we would go over for dinner at least every week, often on Sundays after service.  She seemed to be the one who did everything at the church, and she knew everyone, and she was old!  She wore old lady dresses and hats to church and had arms with the big wattles and lots of wrinkles in her face, and her eyes shone and twinkled and she smiled all the time, and I loved her.  She was kind and cheery.  I thought Santa Claus would be like her if he were a woman and around all the time. 

I associate her with the color brown—brown hair, brown dresses, brown hats—and brown pecans, delicious lasagna, National geographic magazines, and archery.  She lived in a big old white frame house facing the railroad tracks.  Her house had a big front porch with a deep grassy front yard and a big backyard filled with pecan trees.  We’d go over for dinner after Sunday morning services, and while we waited for the meal to be served, we’d sit in the dark, curtained parlor, with its big soft brown chairs, and browse through stacks and stacks of National Geographic magazines, piled all around the room—the first time I ever saw the magazine or had any exposure to the larger world was there in her small dark cozy parlor.  Then she’d call us in to sit around the big dining table, and serve us lasagna—my first time ever to eat lasagna or even hear the word was at her house, and it was a delicious revelation of cheesy goodness. 

After we’d stuffed ourselves silly, we could run out to play in the yard—hide-and-seek, or even chase or cowboys and Indians, if we could move—and eventually we were given buckets and told to pick pecans.  This was my favorite chore of all time.  The ground was so rich and dark and deep smelling—dark dirt and old leaves—and we could pick for hours and hours and never run out of pecans to find somewhere if we poked around and explored enough. 

On truly special days, Wayne Vincent would set up the archery set in the front yard, and let us shoot his bow and arrow at the target.  I couldn’t think of anything finer that to have my own bow and arrow and be able to practice anytime I wanted.

Plus, Janie Jones had a grandson about my age who would come to visit every now and then.  His name was Ben Jones. He had sandy hair and a nice face, and he was my first true love.  I remember one Wednesday night in particular after church—we were maybe 8 years old.  We were sitting in the dirt outside the church offices waiting for our respective adults and rolling the roly poly bugs around in the dirt, shooting them like marbles, when some bossy older girl came by and told us we shouldn’t hurt the bugs.  I felt so ashamed that we stopped and instead drew in the dirt and watched fireflies and talked about our plans for the future, and pledged our eternal love to each other and decided we would get married.  I was so excited.  I couldn’t wait to tell my mom when I got home, but she just laughed and laughed and said we couldn’t get married now, and I cried and cried and couldn’t understand why.  It seemed so perfect.  But she said we were too young and Ben didn’t live here and was going home soon.

Then one day Wayne Vincent announced he was leaving the church to go to another church in Baton Rouge, and not long after that Janie Jones retired her post as director of everything at the church, sold her house and moved to Mississippi to be with her family.

I was shocked.  I didn’t see how First Baptist Zachary could go on without her, and I couldn’t imagine my own life without her.  My father assured me we would go visit her and see her again.

And we did--once.  One hot, sunny summer day, he piled us all into the car and said we were going to go see Janie Jones.  I was beside myself with joy and excitement.  I hoped Ben would be there too.  We drove for hours and hours and wound up at a farmhouse way out in the country, where he said Mrs. Jones lived with her family.  She came out to greet us and gave me a warm, squeeze-the-life-out-of-you hug, and I wanted to bask in her presence all day, but there were lots of people I didn’t know there, and they all wanted to see my dad and her too.  Ben wasn’t there.    I asked, but they said he couldn’t come, that he lived far away, or something--I was too disappointed to follow what they said. 

We ate a light lunch of finger sandwiches—no lasagna—and the old folks talked awhile and it seemed like the energy just kind of died down.  Then someone said we should go pick some watermelon.  They piled us all in the back of a pick-up truck and away we went out in the fields, bumping along on roads, no roads, out in pasture, and stopped somewhere in the bright sun.  The men picked lots and lots of watermelons, cutting them off the vine, and piling them in the back of the truck, and we drove back to the house.  I’d never seen so many watermelons, and I couldn’t imagine how they expected us to eat them all.

My dad said it was getting late, and we better be going, but I begged and pleaded for some watermelon first.  He seemed to not want to take it, and I couldn’t understand why.  I didn’t learn until much later that they grew those watermelon to sell, and he was concerned about taking away part of their livelihood.  He eventually conceded to a little watermelon, and we ate it—red, hot, sweet, and delicious--and then said our goodbyes. 

I never saw Janie Jones, or Ben Jones again, but I remember her every time I eat watermelon (or, for that matter, have any experience that includes a warm and loving smile, pecans, lasagna, National Geographics, archery sets, roly poly bugs, old lady arms, or the color brown).  Even if the watermelon is yellow.  I am happy to support my local farmer.

Evening at the Beach

Sunset over Del Mar Beach, and immediately after from another perspective.

The earth is beautiful.  May we cherish and protect her.

Becoming Beach

Two views of one shell in the process of becoming sand, from this morning's walk

Morning at the Beach: Different Perspectives

Stillness in motion

Wave upon Wave

Morning at the Beach: Seaweed

The ocean was gently exuberant this morning: curling, white water waves pouring to shore, brown ibis poking around the sand, brown pelicans swooping along the line of the waves, little shore birds skittering about, fat knots of seaweed dotting the beach, and the sky oh so blue with white fluffy clouds and a few dark ones, and still the marine layer hanging on in a few places.  And this beauty:

Water receding around giant sea bulb, rigid, heavy, delicate, strange beauty

Morning Beach Walk--The Regulars

           

This morning on Del Mar Beach, I saw 5 brown mallard ducks, 1 dead seagull, 1 live seagull, a twisted rope of kelp and seaweed at least 20 feet long, with a root structure at least 18 inches in diameter.  The sky was crystal blue.  The water smooth as silk, with rolling waves, was dotted with surfers. 

I walked past old couples, young couples, singles: a middle-aged man in an LSU t-shirt, stretched over his solid belly, with a baseball cap on backwards; two athletic-looking middle-aged women, super tan, one in a tennis skirt, the other in running shorts, talking the whole way; a man yakking on his cell phone as he walked quickly on the beach, his woman at his side and keeping stride; and a young couple with their twin white-blond, toddler daughters in their pink bathing suits—the father in his board shorts, no shirt, tattoo between the shoulder blades, longish brown hair pulled back under another backwards baseball cap, and the mother a bleached blond in cut-off jean shorts and a bikini top with a tattoo on her calf, and their 2 mini-pinschers staked to the beach and watching their every move as they played with the girls in the shallow water.

I had seen the couple yesterday morning, walking on the cliff above the beach, with the girls strapped to their chests like shields, arms and legs dangling (in complete over-extension—parents, please stop doing this to your children!), the girls’ faces expressionless as the father complained about something someone had done wrong to him, and the mother followed him, “uh-huhing” along the way.  When I passed the mother and the second girl, she looked at me with a piercing, cut-right-through-me gaze that I would have expected to see on a 100-year-old, not the slightest bit of little girl in her face.  Today, when I passed them on the beach, they gave no sense of recognizing me, and both little girls again looked blank-faced and expressionless, even as they played in the water and toddled in the surf on their chubby little legs.  They looked so cute in their little pink suits, and so little girl-like in the way they played, but nothing showed on their faces.  Their mother smiled at them and talked with delight to the father about the way they moved in the water, but the girls didn’t laugh or smile—they were very serious about what they were doing.

As I came up the cliff from the beach, many surfers passed me.  A middle-aged woman carrying a huge paddleboard like it was nothing.  An older guy with his wet suit pulled down to the waist following right behind her with a surfboard.  And 3 young guys with wet suits down to their narrow waists, well-muscled, tanned chests, scampering down with their surfboards, as easy as could be.

Up on the cliffs on the path to and from the beach, I passed a man who I’d seen surfing many times—a short, solid, athletic guy who looks like he’s in his 60s, silver hair, well-built, never smiles, serious, good surfer, reminds me of Terence Stamp—this time with his wife and dog, and they looked perfect for him:  the dog one of those solid, little brown dogs, about the size of a pug, but without the pug face—an open kind of cute but pugnacious face and with pointed ears.  His wife was well-put-together and looked prosperous and intelligent. 

I saw a few other regulars too: the older, slouched guy in khakis and a dark green polo shirt walking his 2 dachshunds—he always wears the same clothes and always smiles, but doesn’t speak, and the young, super-buff, well-muscled Asian guy, who I only seem to ever see as he is crouching down to pick up poop from the black lab he walks.  

When I left for my walk, the sky was overcast--the marine layer--then the sun cut through it all, bright, bright, bright, and the waves just keep coming, like the people.  We're all regulars here.