A Tomato A Day
The tomato plant is a gift…. the plant has given me something unexpected: Patience.
A couple of different friends gifted me with some tomato plants early this summer. Given my family heritage of Brown Thumbs, I’m extremely proud that just one of those plants has made it this far and is bearing fruit while sitting in a pot on my front porch. This spring and summer I have watched my front porch plants from my dining room table while working from home. I scared off a few squirrels (or possibly the same squirrel, but they are all named Rodney anyway) and once saw a Cardinal try to roost in the tomato plant pot. Sadly for the bird, the plant was too small and frail for a bird of his size. Recently, the fruit formation has begun to ripen and I have had a few edible tomatoes! The tomato plant is a gift. It isn’t just that the plant was a gift, but that the plant has given me something unexpected: Patience.
My father often hears my anxiety in moments when my patience runs out. He is kind not to say it this way, but he knows all too well that I am a deeply impatient person and that I all too often try to rush the timing on anything that needs action. I want answers now, I want a plan and resolution to my problem, and when neither plan nor resolution are quick in forming, I easily get lost in the angst of waiting for knowledge. I do think I have an excellent ability to wait when I know what is happening - but remove that control and I start doing the anxiety dance in my living room, turning in aimless circles.
The tomato plant is not interested in my anxiousness. It sits in the red plastic pot, each fruit bearing a distinctive green and white stripe while it ripens. These are fairly small tomatoes, just the size to pop into your mouth or something with which you would top a lunch salad. Which is just what I wanted. I would love to create salad masterpieces with the nineteen tomatoes (I’ve counted) that are still green on the vine. I’ve been watching for weeks as the tomatoes grow (did you know that it takes between 45 and 70 days to ripen?) and I was pretty convinced that the squirrels would eat the fruit of my plant before I did, so nineteen tomatoes feels a bit like a miracle. And yet they are all still there. I count them every day, but I have only had the chance to eat three.
I picked the first one in fear of the squirrel (affectionately named Rodney) and the Cardinal stealing from me. The little orb of red and yellow watercolor stripes sat on my kitchen counter while I waited on the other tomatoes to turn color, too.
And I waited.
Finally one more turned and I pulled it off the vine, fresh with the smell of the plant. Do you know that smell? It’s unique, warm and green, alive. This is what real tomatoes smell like to me. Tomatoes from the store smell bland and empty. But from the vine, they smell alive. One tomato in my hand, and it is alive. How much better would my life be if I had all the tomatoes in my hand? All the life? But I hold just the one, just one glorious piece of fruit that goes into my mouth; I puncture the skin and appreciate the warmth of the tomato, the flavor mild but striking on my tongue.
The third tomato is when I realize that it is a gift. That if I had all nineteen tomatoes at the same time, filling my hand with their life and flavor and color, I’d probably fail to appreciate the true joy of the tomato. That I’d literally toss the tomato into something and not really stop to look, touch, taste the gift that I’ve been given.
The fourth tomato is when I realize that I am never content to wait for the good thing, I’d rather hoard it all now, even if that means it eventually rots and no longer is the beautiful gift it could have been.