Summer in a Tomato

After a wet and soggy start to our summer, here in Iowa, the weather has been picture perfect the past few days.  Hot and sultry...it drains you to just step outside.  But, not these past few days.  Energized and ready to entertain for the upcoming 4th of July Celebration...plans are underway.

I picked my first tomatoes from the garden the other day.  Summer in the form of a ripe red, juicy tomato.  As a little girl, my cousins and I, would pick a tomato from our grandparents garden.  Biting into it, the juice would run down our chins.  We'd giggle~take another bite~giggle again!  I love reminiscing about those times...all the time. 

I think it comes with the aging process.  We have a tendency to reflect back more and more.  Each generation thinking there's was the best, when really, if we each wrote down our favorite memories, studied them side-by-side, we'd realize that the memories are all similar.  They don't look much different...the basics.  The memories are much the same and really, I mean REALLY, have everything and all, to do with family and home. 

All that changes are the clothes we wear, the cars we drive, the jobs we have...the home and places we live.  All of those things revolve around us~but, they really don't 'sustain' us. I find, as I move into this thing called 'grandma~hood', I want to share with Makenna...actually, even my nephews, those things that inspired my childhood. 

The songs we sang, camping, fishing, picking a dandelion and placing it under our chin to see if we like butter.  Family reunions, aunts and uncles, cousins around...all the time.  Picnics and holidays, Christmas eve pj's.  These are all generational and family traditions.  And, inspire in us the same need and want to carry them on...for the here and now and the generations to come.  

A ripe red tomato grows in my garden~a new generation will know the thrill of picking it fresh, biting into it~giggles will form, as the juice runs down a chin and I am inspired!