The first thing I did this morning, after getting my little pug her breakfast, was check on my basil plant. It was out on the balcony, and last night, its leaves had been shriveled, drooped in the surprising humidity of an early June day.
Defeated: that’s what it had looked like, although it’s possible I’d been projecting my own emotions. Yesterday afternoon on the train home from work, the temperature had hovered at 95 and the air conditioning had been broken.
Shirts that had been crisp and white on the morning commute clung to armpits, shoulders, stomachs, backs—places that should never have so much attention drawn to them. Men and women who had gone confidently into work in the morning were, in the afternoon, avoiding eye contact, aware of every drip of sweat coming off their reddened foreheads. Buttons were undone as far as propriety allowed. Suit jackets were shed and would’ve been thrown from the train windows, if they opened, which of course they don’t, and we were all thinking dramatically of what it would feel like to grab that emergency fire axe and take out our overheated aggression on the windows.
Some tried to read the paper or play a game on their phone, but no distraction could scale that wall of heat. I watched one woman wipe down her iPhone screen several times; her sweaty finger as she played Candy Crush kept leaving trails, and she eventually gave up, thinking, like everyone else on the train, “Oh, what’s the use?”
I’d made it home to the air conditioning yesterday afternoon and stepped out on the balcony to check on my plants. And there was my sad little basil plant, looking every bit like every commuter on the westbound 4:15 train. “Oh, what’s the use?” its deflated leaves asked. “If I can’t make it through a June day, how will I ever survive July?”
Filling the watering can at the kitchen sink, I thought again of what I could make with the basil, if only I could keep it alive.
Caprese salad with those grape tomatoes that taste nothing like the big, tough, bland supermarket tomatoes we all now think of as a tomato.
Zucchini crostini with burrata. I’d chiffonade the basil, slicing it into very thin strips I could sprinkle over the sautéed zucchini and that creamy, mild but memorable cheese.
Wouldn’t it be delicious, a just-right summer taste, with grilled peaches and vanilla ice cream?
And there must be a cocktail I could make, one to call my signature summer 2016 drink—perhaps a gimlet?
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I bought my little basil plant at the farmers’ market last Saturday. It had been early—8 in the morning—and I will admit to feeling smug superiority for beating the crowds by being a natural early bird.
Later in the morning, around 10 or so, the aisles of the market are always packed with strollers and people trawling for free samples of just-shelled sweet peas. Inevitably, there is a girl pushing her cruiser bike—the kind with wide handlebars and brakes that you use by pedaling backwards, as if it were a child’s bike—next to the stand selling microgreens. She always pauses, considering if she really would like to spend $10 for very tiny scraps of arugula, just enough to make a salad for a fairy or a woodland creature. While she imagines the very small dinner party she could build around these microgreens, traffic stops behind her, unable to get past her handlebars. Deciding against the microgreens, she slowly moves onto the raw honey stand, and by the time she leaves the market, she will have nothing in her basket but a single sunflower and an iced latte. Which she bought at Starbucks on her way to the market.
Every summer, just once, I make the mistake of agreeing to meet a friend, someone who is not a natural early bird, at the market later in the day. And every summer, as I watch the bicycle girl examine honeycomb as if she’s actually going to buy it, I am filled, all the way down to my toenails, with an urge to tell her to get over herself, something I wish someone had told me when I was 22—and at the very least, to get out of the way of the eggplant I’m trying to reach.
But at 8 in the morning, the aisles are always clear, the eggplant easily accessible, and last Saturday, I’d smiled at every vendor and every other early bird: We were going to get the proverbial worm.
I’d come away from the farmers’ market with:
- Rhubarb that would become a crumble to celebrate the first day of summer
- Shelled sweet peas that would be sautéed in a little butter and a lot of garlic, then tossed on top of pasta carbonara
- Pain au chocolat, made by a French nun whose life I always wonder about. How did you end up here, in middle America? Do you speak French in your convent? Do you ever go home to Auvers-sur-Oise or Castelnaudary or wherever you’re from? But I have yet to work up the courage to ask. The most I have done is to throw a “Merci et bonne journee” to her in a small, timid voice, hoping she’ll hear my accent and lead us into conversation.
- And the little basil plant.
On the way home from the market, I’d stopped at the Pet Supplies Plus. Even in just the few minutes it took to buy dog food, the inside of my car began to boil, the sun already so hot at 8:30 that when I opened the car door, waves of sticky heat emerged, practically tangible. And there, just as strong as the heat, had been the smell of basil.
In the heat of the car, the basil had preened. Feeling the sun on its leaves, it had burst forth with the smell of summer, of evenings in the garden, of southern France or southern Italy or some other sun-soaked world where people eat dinner on terraces overlooking vineyards. That smell of basil was a day spent reading in a hammock, fresh-pressed olive oil, a bike ride along the sea, a morning where you don’t have to wake up to an alarm, and dangling your feet in the teal coolness of a pool.
Standing in the asphalt parking lot of Pet Supplies Plus, suburban traffic of SUVs and minivans crawling past on their way to some soccer game, I wanted everything that little basil plant was offering. I wanted to drink up the world, which I was certain would taste of basil and gin.
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I brought home that basil plant and found the sunniest spot for it out on the balcony. I told my little pug to not eat it. I watered it and I admired it.
And then yesterday the humidity got the best of it, as it does to so many of us. Last night, I sprinkled water from above so it was like a cool rain shower. I told it not to worry, that it could still recover, but inside I was thinking: What a waste of a farmers’ market purchase.
And I was thinking: Why can’t I keep anything alive?
And I was thinking: I probably shouldn’t have imbued this little basil plant with all my hopes for the summer, which are defeated and shriveled now, too.
And I was thinking: That’s kind of a dramatic turn to take; it’s just a plant.
The first thing I did this morning was check on it—and it has sprung back to life. I’m once again ready to drink up the world, which will definitely, certainly taste of basil.
I am on the train and thinking about talking to someone else on the train. (That sounds like the teasing beginning to a game of Twenty Questions: Guess who I am thinking of!)
I'm considering breaking the commuter code of silence because I heard a story on NPR this morning that public transit commuters who talk to other commuters are happier than those who sit in their safe, self-contained world, reading or looking at their smartphones. If NPR reported it, it must be true (and witty and intelligent), so like a good acolyte, I'm doing what they told me to.
(You can read this story for yourself here. My favorite part is where they say that "even for introverts, silence is leaving you sadder." I'm tempted to take that as a challenge: I will not be sadder by not having to talk to other people, just watch me.)
I've been riding the same train for a year-and-a-half—the same car, even. We are creatures of habit: Just as in school when we're allowed to choose our own seat every day and we, after only a few classes, gravitate toward the same seat with territorial fervor, commuters stick with the car and the seat that they know.
Why do we so easily and willingly—gratefully, almost—slip into routine in these small, quotidian ways? I think we are made to find order, and we take joy in ordering the same coffee from the same person. We like sitting down in "our" seat and seeing familiar faces around us. The world is unpredictable, but we make small choices every day to make it feel ever-so-slightly more predictable.
Part of the predictability of my commute is that no one talks. There's a man who works the crossword every day, and behind him is a guy who immediately falls asleep after settling in to his seat. How does he do this? I want to know how restful that sleep is and if he every considered going to bed earlier to avoid the need to sleep more in such a very public place. But it's hard to ask him questions, seeing as he's sleeping, so I'm stuck with my wonderings.
Usually there's an older couple sitting in front of me. They're in their 60s: the man gray-haired and bearded and the woman with a rich blonde that I'm sure is dyed but it looks so natural. Her hair is styled, every day, as if she were Hayley Mills in that show Good Morning, Miss Bliss. Do you know what I'm talking about? It was the precursor to Saved by the Bell, and if you're still a little bit lost (or would like a trip down memory lane), here's a picture of Miss Bliss:
Over the last year-and-a-half, I have invented an entire life for this couple. He's often typing away at what is clearly a scientific abstract, so I made him an epidemiologist at Northwestern, working determinedly in his lab to find the cure for everything. I imagine him travelling around the world to medical conferences to report his findings in PowerPoint talks that are standing room only. His work is that crucial, and his presentations are that engaging.
She's often reading—The New Yorker or a novel—and I believe she's a librarian and is known for her knack of recommending just the perfect book for someone, even if it's in a genre they wouldn't normally read. You can tell her one book you like, one movie you've seen recently, and how you feel about one current even she asks about, and before you're even done answering, you'll receive a book title on one of those little pieces of scrap paper the library has everywhere. A handpicked book: It's practically magical.
When this couple, several months back, spent their train rides looking at decorating websites and discussing in low tones how hardwood is a must because it's so classic and inviting (when there are plush rugs especially, she added), I invented for them a second home in Paris. Their pied a terre is their retirement dream, a goal they've both kept in mind through hours and hours in the lab and in the stacks.
And now it was finally coming true! I was so happy for them, even though I'd never technically spoken to them, but then, two weeks before Thanksgiving, my train friends disappeared.
At first I thought that perhaps they had taken an early Thanksgiving holiday. I'm sure they have children to visit in New York City (of course they enjoy the theatre and all the restaurants) or Napa Valley or Tuscany (apparently I think their children really like wine). But then they didn't come back after Thanksgiving, and now it's been almost a whole week after the rest of my silent commuter friends have returned.
Where are you? I ask their seat every day. I worry about my train friends I don't even know, and now I realize that if I were one of those happy commuters who talked—instead of consuming book after book—I would know, and I wouldn't be so sad as I look at their empty seat.
To console myself, I'm going to believe that they have escaped to that pied a terre in Paris. They're planning on spending the holidays in France because there's just something so right and charming about seeing the City of Lights in twinkle lights. When they come back in January, I'll be sure to ask them how it was.
I want to yell things at drivers.
This is my confession, although it probably doesn't seem like a very worthy/juicy one, given that everyone wants to yell at other drivers at some point.
So let's call this more of my declaration of empathy with others, which sounds like something the United Nations would pass.
Here is what I want to yell at drivers: I am a person!
It is not because I'm feeling unsure of my personhood; it is because people in my town do not understand crosswalks.
When you're in a car, you're supposed to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks. This is the rule, as well as a generally non-mean-person thing to do.
Below is a list of mean people behaviors I want to yell about:
- Ignoring the fact that if I am walking, that means I am outside in the elements, unlike a Mean Driver in their climate-controlled car. I know you may want to get to where you're going faster because it is starting to rain, but did you notice that I am in the rain and that my umbrella is not as sturdy as Mary Poppins' and does not give me the ability to fly home?
- Glaring at me as I cross the road, as if I were a chicken in a bad joke. Why are you angry, Mean Driver? Is NPR telling you all bad news? Did your favorite song from high school just come on the radio and you were still able to sing along with every word—but then you realized it was on the oldies station? I mean, you can't possibly be upset with me for using the crosswalk. I'm not jaywalking. I'm even smiling at you. Please smile back; it'll make you feel better.
- Speeding up when I have obviously started crossing the street. A block away from one of the crosswalks I use every day on my walk home from the train is a stop sign. I'm a smart pedestrian: I look both ways approximately 112 times before deciding it's safe enough to cross. The number of drivers who are sitting at the stop sign, see me start to cross, and then gun it through the intersection—if you knew how high that number was, you would yell, too.
I would like to warn you: If you do any of these things, I will yell* at you and put you on my Mean List.
*The yelling will be in my head. All this talk of yelling, and let's be honest, I would never actually yell at Mean Drivers. I mostly just smile at them more broadly and remind myself to be charitable towards others, even in my thoughts. And then I scurry across the road because no matter how Pollyanna/Anne of Green Gables your thoughts are, you still run a large risk of being run over in my town if you're in a crosswalk.
