peach tree switch

the saturday farm market is at grand army plaza. it is large and overwhelming and full of stroller-pushing maniacs with an undue sense of entitlement. they will run you down with a thousand dollar stroller designed to roll smoothly over the body of any victim the parent flattens with it. my desire to get green things overwhelms my stroller hatred so i take the dog. he carries his eel and the world collapses into wide eyes and cooing noises around him. he is my weapon, keeping these otherwise snooty folks weak and malleable with his terrible cuteness, allowing me to meander among tables full of bedding plants and cheese and cider.

i buy bacon from a stand where pigs with wings fly overhead. from childhood i've known that buying food animals from small farms generally means tastier food. my bacon is made out of old breed pigs. rare and quirky like heirloom tomatoes. if i want to go stay at the farm sometime, there's a little apartment in an old barn right there. if i want to drop by some time just to see a pig or two, the farmers encourage that as well. the pigs, they say, love company. i like an animal that is tasty and gregarious.

there is cheese from flop-eared nubian goats. a log with lavender flowers and honey rolled up in the soft cheese. a tub with orange, honey and walnuts stirred around. the dog stands rigid with his eel while i give the woman money and take the cheese. other dogs try to visit with him but he doesn't even see them. there is only the eel. we have our focus, each of us.

i head over to a table full of lavender. pillows and sachets and little dried bundles. a long line of plants of all sizes is over to the side. i ask for a plant and the man wants to know if i need indoor or outdoor. i have never heard of such a thing and i ask. this seems fair to me but he takes offense somehow and in a condescending tone explains that plants grown outside will die if they are kept inside and vice versa. i know this is not true because i've owned lavender plants in the past that have wintered indoors and then spent the glorious summer days basking on the porch or fire escape. i ask another question about a plant in a south facing window (even though i don't have one) and the man's voice gets so tense i decide to ignore his stupidity. i get an indoor plant and an outdoor plant. all bases covered.

we are leaving when i notice peach tree switches. now, the sign says "peach blossom" but what they are is four foot long switches with buds. now, if you are of a certain age and from a certain part of the country, your biggest childhood fear was a peach tree switch. my own parents preferred the psychological warfare: go to your room! you better not even try reading a book while you're in there! so although i have absolutely no recollection of this sort of punishment on my own tender backside i can tell you grown folks made it clear that the horribleness of it was not always so much in the switching, but more in the fact that you had to go out and cut your own switch from the tree. this would give you time to think about your sorry state and it would be clear to you that no matter how clever you thought you might be in your selection of switches, the red welts on the backs of your legs were there because you had brought the miserable branch into the house yourself. peach tree switches were, during my childhood, the punishment of choice of grannies, especially. it takes very little arm strength to deal a stinging blow and you can continue to yell at the child while switching.

they are eight dollars for a bundle of twelve switches and there's really no reason not to get them. i hand over my eight dollars and try to balance the dog, his eel, the bacon, two cheeses, the indoor lavender plant, the outdoor lavender plant and the bundle of switches. there are several attempts at rearranging on the way home and finally i carry the branches over my shoulder, hobo style. we get home and the bacon and cheeses go right in the fridge. the plants go on the windowsill and the fire escape. i have no idea what to do with these switches, though. they are too big for any vase i have ever owned. they are too big for any container we have in this tiny apartment. there is a very distinct possibility that they are too big for this apartment.

they lie in the sink all afternoon, bottom ends submerged in water, bundled tight with two bands of twine. i search the kitchen store, the flea market, the garden store and a few thrift stores. i walk all the way down to the big home improvement store by the canal. i walk six or seven miles just trying to find a container for four foot tall switches. i have given up and flopped myself on the couch when i see the ice cream maker sitting quietly by the bookcase. actually it is the wooden outer bucket of the ice cream maker we used when i was a child. dad would drape a towel over the top and would have one of us sit on it to weigh it down when cranking the handle got to be so difficult the whole bucket would roll around.

it is a little over a foot tall and not quite a foot across and it is made out of vertical staves banded by rusted metal rings, barrelish. the bottom ring is gone but there's a bit of the silvery paper label smack in the middle of the thing. i put a dish of water in the bottom and drop the bundle into the bucket. the whole thing leans to one side and nearly flips over. i hold the bundle up in the center and snip the top band of twine. it is like a flower opening up. the branches ease apart from one another scattering pink buds on the floor. i snip the second band of twine and the whole mass breathes out, relaxes. a cotton candy tree stands in the apartment, worth all eight of those dollars and then some.