Tomatoes.

Today’s rune: Eiwaz.

After I went to bed feeling suicidal (one of the only sane ways of dealing with it), I was gently removed from this body and much of what I remember is colored like late afternoon summer sunlight. Some of it was afternoon sunlight. Some of it was him. Some of it was warm wood. The colors of fabrics complementing it. Decidedly out of season but nonetheless sumptuously healthy tomatoes (cherry) and pears, with more seasonable arugula and asparagus. Perfect spring asparagus. The sort you can only get from your own garden or if you are fortunate enough to have access to a farmer’s market. The kind you steam delicately and do absolutely nothing else to, because it would be an outrageous sin.

I’ve only had such perfect tomatoes from my own plants, twisted from the vine and immediately put in my mouth while I was working on getting the rest of them off of the plants. Sun-warm.

When I commented on the tomatoes, looking at one of them on my fork with a slightly baffled expression, he smiled crookedly, said something about being a god of the harvest and of plenty and if he wanted perfectly ripe tomatoes in late March, why shouldn’t he have them?

He was deliberately hitting my food weaknesses.

I was not complaining.

I actually forgot for a while that I’d spent most of the night crying until I finally cried myself to sleep and that I was extremely upset. Truly forgot.

What a gift.

Yesterday, when however I was holding myself together after the news of the night before collapsed on the exterior of my therapist’s building, and I felt like I was ten miles underwater as I tried to get myself underway to the train station, he was abruptly hugging me hard.

That terrible question: when was the last time someone else did this? When was the last time someone wanted to see me, even when I was miserable? When did someone want to be there?

Brand doesn’t count; he’s practically obligated. Is obligated. Willingly. But there are all sorts of ties in there that neither of us can walk away from, and while it’s always his completely genuine choice, I don’t think he could avoid it if he really wanted to, so the dynamic is different. Also: thorough, very thorough, lack of romantic interest. Oh lord.