Distance Makes the Heart Grow

Today was the last day of the Oakwood Farmers Market season.  Vendors and artisans brought their best to their tables and a lively energy permeated the parking lot tucked in the tree-lined streets of Oakwood.  It was a proper autumn day, kids with caps on their heads rolled by shivering parents through rows of tents...melted popsicle running down their chins onto cozy sweaters...everyone knows Sweet P's icepops are a market day staple.  Others gallivanted by in packs with faces painted to celebrate the last hurrah at market...Halloween cookies crumbling as they ran, a treat from the baker a few tents down.

I wonder if I'll see the same faces I've come to recognize as familiar when market begins again in the spring?  Between the mobile Air Force families based at Wright Patt, kids graduating and moving on with life, older folks who may decide to kick market from their routine...inevitably each year presents a new band of regulars.  I grow fond of the pop-up neighborhood we recreate every Saturday while leaves are on the trees.  But with months off for new courses to be charted, babies to be born or conceived, and shifted routines, we can expect a reset in 2023 with vibrations all of its own.

And so today under fall's best sky, leaves raining down and adorning our market table with their scarlet and amber, I relished the atmosphere and personality of this particular season.  Well wishes, hugs, crinkle-eyed smiles and gratitude were exchanged between vendors and visitors.  Community does exist (and it survived a most isolated time in life...this Covid era).  Being that I give goodbye's ceaseless enough to irritate Rich as I'm never quite feeling ready to part from someone, it was my pleasure to tell people that we would continue to accept online orders through the off-season.  I still have a chance to indulge in a smaller version of this community at pick up every Saturday morning.  But instead of an all day affair behind a busy booth, I sleep in a little later and then head down to Oakwood where I pore into winter reading with a warm mug of Rich-roasted coffee to run the most vegetabley drive-thru you ever did see.  And when I return to the farm, I bring stories back for Rich and feel enlivened by hearing about lives off of the farm--those of our customers.  

My life is made much richer by the people we feed and meet through our work.  And for those I won't see until next year, or whom I may not see again..."distance makes the heart grow".