Summer Evenings

It's a Thursday evening in the beginning of June, and even though it isn't summer, you can feel it out there in the long shadows as you go out after 10 and feel the heat radiating back up at you from the pavement, the sky dark, the sun hidden behind the western horizon, and a slice of white moon hides in the leaves of the giant maple out behind the back yard fence.

I went back out to the car to get the rhubarb I'd cut from Paul's plants earlier this evening, when we stopped to borrow the pressure washer and the wood chipper - tools for a productive June weekend if ever there were any.  He'd had them out waiting for us as Karen and I pulled into the driveway, there they were, standing in front of the garage waiting for a purpose.

As I loaded them into the back of the car, Karen visited with Paul and Blue, his dog, and then we ventured through the garage, past my chainsaw and 1/2" drill - both borrowed earlier for projects he had undertaken when work was slower - through the workshop with its long wooden counters and shelves more bare than workshop shelves should be allowed; past the row of nails holding shovels and rakes and hand tools, and out into his large backyard with ample grassed areas for a dog to run and chase a ball.

I threw the old ratty tennis ball for Blue, but maybe being new to this, not knowing the unspoken rules, I didn't follow their set routine - I threw the ball across the yard towards the tall spruce in the north corner - Blue instinctively ran for the western edge of the yard, his head turning from side to side, searching for what didn't come that way at all.  He stopped.  And I had to walk across the grass to the far side to retrieve the ball.

Something about having to fetch the ball you've thrown for a dog is just so wrong.

That's when I saw the rhubarb.  Growing low behind the house, away from the deck and the flower bed in the centre of the yard; out of sight from the sitting room's large, floor-to-ceiling, sliding patio doors, it's dark large leaves shielding the red and green stalks from the sun.  Paul went to get a knife so I could choose enough for a crisp or a pie or a crumble - I haven't decided which - and I chose the larger, older stems - knowing most people prefer the sweeter, less tart, more slender young ones.

Its habit from my youth, when as kids we'd take rhubarb and eat it raw right from the patch, dipping the cut end in a small bowl of white sugar, and savouring the jolt of contrasting tastes.  Those older, larger canes provided more area for the sugar to stick and cake around the edges, and you learned quickly how long to leave the pieces in the bowl, and how to turn them just so, to pack a good thick crusty layer on the end.

Back home, almost ready for bed, I remembered the rhubarb in the car, so I brought it in and cleaned it.  Standing at the kitchen sink, the window dark with only the street light's pale yellow illumination giving outside objects any shape.  I washed it down and cut it into more or less equal sized cubes and packed them away in a Tupperware bowl and snapped the lid shut and slid them into the fridge for the night.  A simple domestic ritual, preparing fresh fruit for a meal to be made the next day - something your parents likely did when you were a child, and it seemed normal, regular, common back then, expected to a degree.  After an evening spent weeding or tilling or tending the garden and yard, the final act before settling in for the night took place in the kitchen, usually centred around the sink and its dark window.  The sweet, quiet, summer air wafting slowly through the open window screen, the distant hum of the day receding.

I popped a cube of the cut rhubarb into my mouth, hesitating at first, but drawn in, knowing what to expect, but still excited to find out, and as that tangy tartness hit my tongue, childhood memories of summers past flooded in.

When the days lasted forever and you rode your bike all over town, hanging out with your friends and filling the hours with laughter and fun, being called in when the sky got too dark to see anymore, knowing you were getting away with something special, staying up past your normal winter and school driven bedtime.

Those days were sweet, like the sugar we dipped the rhubarb in, and while the years have brought us more responsibilities and concerns, like the tangy rhubarb tartness that stands you up and lets you know you're alive, we carry on with simple domestic rituals as we take our parent's places, knowing that the crisp, or pie or crumble will taste that much sweeter after a June evening spent working in the yard pressure washing the deck, or chipping the pile of trimmed tree branches.

I wonder if the boy wants some rhubarb and a small bowl of sugar?