Happy Labor Day weekend, friends! 

This week, I ate the perfect peach.

I know—this is hardly newsworthy.

But to me, it felt important. Living in the midwest, I understand that summer is a fleeting season. It always seems that winter is lurking around the corner.

Flipping the calendar from August to September is a heavy chore. That's when the realization sets in: summer doesn't last forever.

To me, summer is perfectly encapsulated by a peach, ripened on a tree beneath the warm summer sun somewhere in Michigan; picked, boxed, and loaded onto a truck, then driven to a local market in my neighborhood.

Sometimes you get a peach that has a bruise or two. Sometimes you bite into it to find it's not quite fully ripe. Or it might be a tad overripe and be slightly mushy.

If I had known I was going to eat the perfect peach, I would've put on my favorite cotton summer dress, grabbed my straw hat, and carried it out to a meadow to eat it in the shade of an old oak tree.

Turns out, I was in my cubicle on a Wednesday.

We're not always ready when those perfect moments come along. In fact, many perfect moments probably pass us by, and we don't even notice.

I couldn't put the peach away to save it for a perfect moment: as soon as I sliced it open, it had to be eaten now. This was the perfect moment.

I turned away from my computer. I would not make this gorgeous piece of fruit suffer the indignity of being snarfed down while my mind was elsewhere—not after all it went through to grow from a tiny seed. I gave it my full attention, breathed in the heavenly smell. I tried to savor each juicy bite the best I could. 

I may not encounter another perfect peach like that this summer. I hope so, but I won't count on it. I know this season is almost over. I'm just glad that when the moment presented itself, I was able to stop what I was doing to give it its due.

There's only here, there's only now.

xoxo,