Hot Cross Buns

Every time I do this work, I marvel at how lucky I am. We were meant to tend this earth. Every time I do it, it feels right. Let me get on a soapbox for just a moment: if we all engaged in labor, joyfully, every day, instead of avoiding it, we might all be more happy. (Stepping off soapbox now.)

Every day it is a new plant that captivates me. Today, our humble native redbud has me swooning.

I have lived on this earth for 40 years. I have seen and felt the seasons change, but not until recently did I appreciate what that means. Each night I bike home, I am overcome by the moon. Or, how the leaves unfurl. Or, the fragrance of the snowball viburnum. These things have been with me all my life, but not until recently did I appreciate them.

These cerulean days: magnolias in full glory, a silvery beech about to burst leaf.

One thing about skilled physical labor: it engages your body, and your mind. And, if you are lucky enought to work in the elements, you see the seasons change.

These magic sun dappled days: soon, my woodland paths will be shaded.

I am blessed, or cursed, with a metabolism that requires constant attention. I love to eat, but also require a lot of food, every few hours, to keep me going.

Normally on estate days, I pack sandwiches. Six or eight of them.

Today, I was running late. So, that required a trip to Narberth,

Feels, immediately, like a place you have been before.

Narberth is a little stop on the Mainline of the Pennsylvania Railroad. For years it was an enclave, filled with Irish Philly cops, derided as a backwater, a working class place "betwixt and between" the mainline proper and the city itself.

A genuine, fully stocked five and dime.

But, my first time setting foot in this place, it felt immediately "home:" a two square block downtown, with extant deli, hardware store, five and dime, grocery store, movie theatre, pizza shop, laundromat. Everything you need, within a few blocks.

Not that I ever lived in such a place. I think I was remembering my Fischer Price "Little Village." The downtown where I grew up has been gasping for breathe most of my life, but I do recall angle parking in front of the shoe store, pharmacy, hardware store, before the whole thing was bricked off and made a "mall."

Next door to the first rate hardware store, every year they set up a temporary shelter to sell pansies and Better Boys.

So, today, I go to the old A&P, to get a sandwich. Though the whole place is but 4 aisles wide, all is contained here, that you need. I approach the deli counter, and order a Narberth Special Hoagie. Which, of course, I painfully pronounce NAR BERTH. The octogenarian deli man, taken aback, clarifies. "Oh, you would like a Narbit?"

Those little red plastic fringes separating the sections of the meat cooler brought back immediate, visceral memories of A&P's and Krogers I have known.

Waiting for my sandwich to be handcrafted, I roam those four aisles. In front of the tiny circular conveyor belt check out lanes, exactly like they used to have at the Sparkle Market or the little Acme in Cuyahoga Falls, is a tin foil pan of hot cross buns.  

I pick up the pan of buns, euphemistically thinking, perhaps I will save them for breakfast.

I go back to the deli man, he assumes I am from this place and asks why he has not seen me lately. I play along to the extent that I can, feigning familiarity with this place and an imagined connection to this place that feels immediately familiar yet completely foreign. It is the primal hometown.

A bank of grape hyacinth in front of a gambrel roof house.

I pay for my purchases and bike my way back to the estate.

One after another, I eat the hot cross buns, under a magnolia in full glorious bloom.
I marvel at the season changing before my very eyes, rejoice that I have a job that lets me immerse myself, viscerally, in each unfolding day, and realize, if I had not forgotten to pack my lunch, most likely, I would have made it through Easter without the pleasure of a hot cross bun. And that, would be a shame.

This magic day, buds unfurl to leaflets before your very eyes.

These magnolia days: ancient trees tower over already substantial stone homes, glinting with Wissahickon shist.