On Saturday morning I was thankful for the camouflaging of sunglasses as I made my way around the St. Paul Farmer’s Market. In keeping with my usual weekend ritual I headed there in the early morning as the mist was still rising off the shimmering waters of the Mississippi. The chill in the air spoke more about fall than the summer we are still living in and the sky was as blue and clear as could possibly be.

Arriving at the market I did my trip up all three of the aisles taking in the vegetables, flowers, plants, and meat vendors wares before I settled on buying anything. Almost immediately I was accosted by the color, the sheer beauty of all this abundance of earth’s bounty. Row upon row of sweet corn shone forth green and yellows of varying hues. Peppers, green, red, orange and yellow were so shiny they looked like mirrors of themselves. And the tomatoes. Box after box, red orbs of a myriad of sizes waited to be snapped up for sandwiches and canning jars. Eggplants wore their purple robes and green crowns while onions and beets looked on in their humble simplicity.

Flowers, most of which were also giving way from summer colors to those of fall, were bound in bouquets ready for the lucky buyer. The pastels of earlier weeks had been replaced by the richer waves of deep orange, dark red and rusty browns. The hardy blooming plants of autumn replaced their more fragile, wispy cousins pointing toward a time yet to come.

All of this show had me verklempt. Hiding behind my sunglasses I walked through this tapestry of color and hard work. In my mind I kept thinking: “Memorize this.” And so I tried to open my eyes and my heart to the abundance of it all. I allowed the reds and greens, the yellows and oranges to seal themselves into the storage closets of my brain. Like scripture verses committed to memory as a child, I placed these sacred icons of summer in a vault to be called out when I need them most.

In the next months, as vile words of political rhetoric tumble from mouths and threaten to undo us all, I will remember the grit and dirt on the hands of those who harvested beauty. When the news becomes too much for my heart, I will open the vault door and pull out a bouquet of flowers and breathe in their sweet goodness and offer their gift to all I meet. On days when work offers more difficulty than creativity, I will remember peppers, their shiny skins and perfect life come from seed. And when sadness and loss stops by for a visit, I will remember tomatoes, tiny and sweet, enormous and beefy.

As I thought about this bounty that brought me to tears, I hoped that this message, “memorize this”, will stick with me for a lifetime. Even if, over the years, the things I remember are fewer and fewer, I hope and pray, the mental snapshots I recorded on one perfect Saturday morning will somehow swim to the surface and calm and please me. May it be so for all those who wander in the wilderness of memory. May there be an image memorized on a day when tears appeared in eyes that beheld a beauty so wonderful a message came: “Memorize this.”