For the simple fact that at times reality can be a bit too real, I sometimes like/choose to focus on the minutia found in life. Like the fact that a few months ago I found myself at a tomato festival (yes, my life is that big) with my husband. We quickly separated because I like to peruse in my own, step above plodding, fashion where my husband skitters from thing to thing like a humming-bird.

As I looked at each leafy green plant, I decided that while I love to eat tomatoes, I just wasn’t that excited about the whole planting it, tending it, de-bugging it stuff. I know my husband has that part handled because this is how he de-stresses from life and all its reality. Four years ago, he found his Zen in gardening and if that’s where he finds peace, then I’m all for it. Especially since the results are yummy.

But I was more an observer to the whole process until that day. Then, the word ‘chocolate’ caught my eye. There, I stood buried in a farm full of tomato plants, with intimidating farm-like people and that delicious word leaned nonchalantly against a 4” trembling plant.  I ran to find my husband.

“Look!” I shoved the poor plant in his face. “This is a chocolate tomato plant. We have to buy it.”

Sweet man that he is, he took the plant from me and added it to his cart.

When we got home, I was more than eager to find out when he was planting it and where. He planted it along with seven other varieties of tomato plants that we had to have.

Every evening after work, he tends his garden. When he has (literally) done all of the dirty work, I go out and we harvest together. I fill a colander daily with tomatoes, zucchinis, cucumbers, green beans, and green peppers.

I love the predusk time we spend together harvesting. The tomato plants stand over 7’ tall now so obviously I pick low, while my husband picks high. Reality is still reality, but when my hands smell like dirt and tomatoes, I can turn the volume of worry low for those precious few moments.

It hums in the background, but there is nothing like manual labor to shove thoughts away. I pick the vegetables. Wash them. Find recipes that I can’t easily ruin. And make batches and batches of incredible marinara sauce. (The recipe is so basic, that I cannot destroy it.)

Sadly, though, it turns out that a chocolate tomato is named that not because it tastes like chocolate (!!!) but because it has a dusky chocolate color. I have overcome the disappointment. There are worse things in life.