Today while I was out in the garden or should I say tomato patch, I was reaching to get a few of the nearly ripe ones and my toes squished into the wet ground. We had only a small rain burst but it was enough to make the air steamy and muggy. I love the south! But the garden dirt had become a thick mud and it reminded me of when I was younger and my daddy would plow up the garden; a big one, and the big mounds of dirt were all rolled over and I would run behind him and jump from one mound to the next. There was something about that thick mud that felt so good on my feet. The smell was as rich as the good smell of strong coffee. Things like that were a comfort to me, something you could count on year after year. The same reason I always without fail smell a book, new or old. It is a classic move of mine as well as sniff a new box of crayola crayons. That’s what the thought of fall on its way reminds me of, all the certain-ness. There are just certain things and times of year that are comforting. Like these things are comfort food to my spirit. There are so many times in my life that I have wondered and said out loud, what in the world is going on! Everyone has these times. But I can usually survive if I can get to what is home to me. New school supplies, fresh notebook paper that hasn’t been marked on or bent and erasers that haven’t been blackened and those wonderful crayons, always crayola by the way, that smell sooo good. And the smell of a tomato straight from the vine, that smell is pure and fresh and an amazement to see it comes from that smelly dirt. That God, he sure is smart!