Ah, welcome to summer. While there are delights to be shared with friends in every season, the juicy tastiness of a ripe peach may be my very favorite. How I love the fuzzy peach rubbing against my chin and the splurt of juice that follows. Oh, to celebrate fruits that cannot be contained within their skins for one. second. longer. Ahhh. How good is it to see the smiles of your friends savoring this full body experience and laughing at one another as the juice runs down our chins?
One of my fond family memories, is driving up Catawissa Mountain to buy baskets of fruit. Sometimes, during peach season we would make that drive twice a week and my parents would buy mixed half-bushel baskets of peaches. Whatever varieties were the “peaches of the week” filled those baskets to overflowing. We knew them all by name and waited with great anticipation for our favorites to come into season. Each peach had its distinctive flavor — sometimes subtle and sometimes wild, or winey — and they all tasted best bursting out of their fuzzy skins.
Peaches call for picnics. Picnics can be two or three people under a tree in the back yard; or they can be a great gathering under a pavilion or down by the creek. Tables or blankets are spread with all the summer vegetables and salads, cold meats, and peach delicacies- pies, dumplings, and shortcakes. We inhabitants of the Susquehanna Valley know that when you live rurally, you live by an agricultural calendar. Sometimes, if summer has been gracious, there can be a bit of a pause in the work that needs to be done. Making time for a mid-day picnic by creeks or light suppers under a pavilion somehow manage to sneak their way onto schedules. (Oh, and this is tomato season, so grandpa’s prized beauties with salt sprinkled from his pocket saltshaker are not to be overlooked.)
In Summer’s heat, with the bounty it offers, what if, rather than focusing on our differences, we simply chose to picnic together? What if the reason for getting together was as simple and as magical as enjoying the wonderous cantaloups ripening on the vine? In a world that is already cantankerous and uncertain, let’s build safety and community with a checkered table cloth spread with garden delights. What better way to make Peace than bonding over the shared sweetness of a juicy peach.
I live in the Bountiful Susquehanna Valley, we are offered the possibility of living in rhythm with the four seasons. Living this close to the earth, in our small communities, we are deeply linked by that rhythm. It is such a comfortable precious gift, why not welcome it and celebrate together? Our neighbors raise the same crops and eat the same foods. With only a minimum of employers, we often work where our neighbors work. We know each other. We sometimes allow our religious and political differences to divide us — but when we are in need, neighbors show up for one another. Why, I wonder, would we focus on unraveling the threads that may divide us, when there is so much that knits us together?
On the first of August I celebrate Lammas, which is the anglicized Celtic name of the day halfway between the Summer Solstice and the Autumn Equinox. When I think of this holiday, the first image that comes to mind is a bite from a ripe, juicy peace whose juice runs down my chin. Heaven. August makes me long for naps in a hammock strung between backyard trees or shared conversations on the edge of a creek (feet dipped in, of course).
Why work hard at the divisions, when we can turn to one another and offer a peach for Peace. What a difference this could make! Tell me, in the name of Peace, what’s your favorite Peach variety? What is your favorite way to enjoy them: pie, ice cream, shortcake, ice cream, canned for later, jams? There are as many ways for neighbors to make Peace as there are to serve your Peaches. I’m pretty sure that at least one of our local ice creameries is making peach Sundaes… Want to meet somewhere (even on line!) and indulge in the sweet, simple, shared joy of Peach Peace?
Salaam, Shalom, Peace, Blessed Be.