by emory

This summer’s gardening exploits involved a lot of trial and error, with considerably more error than I would’ve preferred. I’m slowly learning what to plant where; tragically, that resulted in many casualties (rest in peace, five out of six squash plants). My lavender and calendula are doing alright, my cucumber has many flowers but no actual cukes, and my yellow bell peppers are impressing me with how large they’re getting while still being green. The real triumph, though, has been my tomatoes.

Every morning, I go down the back stairs to look out the window at my tomato plants. Jo follows behind me a few minutes later, and I inform him on the status of my emeralds—and how many have started to turn into rubies. My rubies, I call them.

As I watched them grow, I knew exactly what meal I wanted to use them for. Jo makes a pesto tomato chicken that I think is literally perfect: creamy pesto sauce, tender chicken breast, tomatoes bursting in your mouth, and roasted potatoes to soak up the sauce.

I wasn’t sure whether my rubies would be enough to make the meal for three—me, Jo, and his brother who’s living with us—so I asked Jo to pick up some extra tomatoes from the store.

But, much to my joyful surprise, my rubies were just the right amount for dinner, no supplemental tomatoes needed.

It was the perfect meal for the last day of summer. I actually did a little happy dance each time I took a bite, and anyone who knows me knows that I am not one to dance for food (aside from the occasional shimmy over a good ice cream). Yes, I am a sweet treat kind of guy, and I’m hard-pressed to get excited about dinner. When you spend your teenage girlhood in a tortured relationship with food and your body, you can struggle to enjoy a meal.

But I’ve recently found that, through the power of Zoloft and intensive therapy, I’m finding life more pleasurable all around. I was so happy to eat a tasty, nourishing dinner made with tomatoes I tended to all summer.

I’ve found it tempting to give full credit to the medication for the recent improvements in my wellbeing. But my therapist reminded me yesterday that, actually, I’ve been working really fucking hard for this. For the past few months, I’ve been doing exposure and response prevention therapy, a treatment protocol for OCD that is essentially doing things that make you uncomfortable/afraid without doing any of the compulsions you use to self-soothe so that you learn you can tolerate the discomfort. A lot of the time, that means tolerating the discomfort of not knowing. It’s hard to cohabitate with the unknown—to live in the gray areas. OCD would prefer for everything to be black and white. But life is gray areas; nothing is black and white, not really. It’s all nuance, all the time.

Beyond just my OCD treatment, I’ve also been working to improve my overall health as I try to conceive. I’ve been exercising more (mostly walking and yoga), using my phone less, eating according to my dietitian’s recommendations, prioritizing sleep, and trying to manage my stress to the best of my ability. That’s all made a big difference in how I feel.

All that being said—credit where credit is due: the Zoloft has made a big difference. My OCD has been debilitating for years, and in the past week alone, I’ve done things I thought I might never be able to do again. My therapist was out of town last week, so for us to have met two weeks ago with me very much in black/white brain, then for them to see me yesterday very much in gray brain? That’s wild. Thank god for modern medicine.

On the subject of tomatoes: if I had to pick a song of the summer (or a song of my summer, anyway), I would choose “Planting Tomatoes” by Lucy Dacus. (If you haven’t watched the music video already, do yourself a favor and click that hyperlink.)

Aside from loving the song itself, the lyrics speak to how I’ve felt this summer. No, not just because I’ve been planting tomatoes.

Planting tomatoes in the empty lot
Someone practicing saxophone down the block
They are not good yet
They are not good yet

Picking flowers off the shoulder of the road
18-wheelers rushing by a little too close
Life is just a series of close calls
One day one will come to end them all

But before then, I've got some ideas
But before then, I've got some ideas

Coming together in a circle of hands
Gently pressing palms when the prayer ends
We all say, "Amen"
Say, "Amen"

Subtle pixelation of the world through the screened-in porch
I could sit here for hours
You've gotta live the life you're fighting for
You've gotta live a life you would die for

But before then, I've got some ideas
But before then, I've got some ideas

Hearing my friends laughing in the distance
I can't help but laugh along without knowing what the joke is
Can't help thinking that I am gonna miss this
Living in the moment, I can feel the moment passing

Now I'm older than you'll ever be
On a day you will never see
There is so much that I have not lost
Someday I know I will pay the cost

But before then, I've got some ideas
But before then, I've got some ideas
But before then, I've got some ideas
But before then, I've got some ideas

There have been so many simple pleasures this summer. I grew my rubies and picked flowers, and while no one practiced saxophone down the block to my knowledge, the neighbors did sing some karaoke that we could hear through the walls.

There has also been some sadness. I read my friend Eileen’s wonderful newsletter this morning, which opened with a Yasi Salek quote about summer songs needing to contain both buoyant joy and a glimmer of sorrow. (“Planting Tomatoes” is therefore the perfect candidate for a summer song.) Every time I hear the lyrics, “Now I’m older than you’ll ever be / On a day you will never see / There is so much that I have not lost / Someday I know I will pay the cost,” I think of my dear friend Hamza, who died a decade ago this August. He was my best friend in my sophomore year of high school, and his sudden loss before my junior year devastated me. He was kind and smart and funny, and I often wonder what he would think of me now. I am, after all, a very different person now. But I am the same person in a lot of ways, too. It’s not black and white. I hope he would be happy to see me live the life I’m fighting for—a life I would die for.

I miss him dearly. I wish I could share my rubies with him. And I think he’d be glad that I savored them.