I Want You To Live Forever

I never understood our culture's preoccupation with staying young. Until I fell in love with this astonishing earth.

another “found” piece of art from the fountain at Lexington Botanical Gardens

In the mornings when I walk Bonnie around the house, the song of a single robin fills the lingering dark around us. His song rings from my neighbor’s tree and bounces off the hills until it is liquid, like the moist air clinging to my skin—I drink it in. He sings until his voice sounds hoarse. Beautiful, nonetheless. The chorus of birdsong we gobbled up in the spring and early summer has given way to this solitary songster. I listen closer and hear the faint, squeaking call of an American goldfinch; a cardinal joins in the round, adding his rolling notes. A trio, then. This is the way my soul awakens, quickening to this astonishing world around me.

We have had rain the past few days—those sudden, summer storms that change the sky from blue to black in the blink of an eye. The garden is exploding with tomatoes. When we returned from the Master Naturalist conference on Sunday, I picked and canned eleven pounds of Romas and San Marzanos. My cherry tomato plants were bent over with fruit.  I made a rustic tart with them and still have some left over. I used the Pioneer Woman’s recipe, and her crust—swapping out her Crisco for butter (which didn’t hurt my feelings at all). That crust melts in the mouth. I like to cube up my butter and place it in the freezer until I’m ready to cut it into the flour—a little trick I picked up from Melissa d’ Arabian. It makes the crust, oh, so flaky.

cherry tomato tart

August is the month of tomatoes. I eat some every day in August. Most days, it’s a simple beefsteak sandwich (I swap out the traditional mayonnaise for blue cheese dressing) and I keep a bowl of sweet 100s on the counter to snack on all day long. Tomatoes pair well with so many things: bacon, pasta, honey, all the cheeses, a hearty Italian bread, eggs, salmon … I could go on forever.

August is heaven for my tongue.

View of the New River from Grandview Park

Another lovely thing that happened this August was the Master Naturalist conference I referred to earlier. Every year, the West Virginia Master Naturalists gather for a weekend to learn from and teach each other about the wonders of our little corner of the world. This is my second year in the program, and it will likely take me another year to complete the requirements for my certificate, but it was my first time attending the conference.

There was so much goodness packed into those three days that I don’t know if I even have words to describe it. I learned about our state’s geology, our native orchids (we have 40+!); I visited an historic railroad town and looked over the New River Gorge. I got up at 6 a.m. to look for birds with some other crazy, beautiful people. I felt the spray of waterfalls, called the stars by name, and saw meteors streak through the night sky. I saw my first juvenile red-headed woodpecker, delighted in mushrooms and butterflies and the color green. I did some forest bathing and listened to the trees … I made new friends and deepened some old ones.

Sandstone Falls

I am still exhausted, but it was oh, so worth it.

I was joking with my friend Ken at the conference that the term “Master” Naturalist seems to be an inside joke. The more I learn the more I realize I will never get to the bottom of learning about this beautiful earth. In my lectionary readings this week, I read that Noah lived to be 950 years old. I’ve never understood our culture’s obsession with staying young—it has always seemed like so much vainglory to me.  Until these latter years of my life, that is. Maybe it is feeling my mortality, but also, I can’t help asking myself, “What would I do with 950 years?” I wish I had started studying nature so much earlier.

But starting now has been good too.

A song for you:

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