Finn’s Garden
June 26, 2026 6:55 a.m.
Writing Exercise: Immersing in the Beauty
What do I see?
My journal.
Espresso. Dark brown and bubbly, with foamy white resting on top.
My cup.
A glass of water, fogged over from the humidity of the morning.
My glasses case.
My phone.
A black iron garden table with a fleur-de-lis pattern and an empty hole in the center.
Resting across the table are cucumber vines that have grown leaves bigger than my palm, with spiraled, sturdy tendrils twirling and ready to grasp onto anything and everything. Yellow blossoms. Spiked baby cucumbers no longer than this word: cuqui, as my mother used to call them.
Yesterday, my sister died for ninety seconds.
She was having a routine procedure, and the doctors compressed and compressed her chest until they brought her back.
Thank God she's here on this side.
Her first words to me were, "I'm so blessed."
Not her usual way of speaking, but definitely the way she was feeling.
She is a light in this world that I'm so thankful was not extinguished.
The cucumber vines sprawl out to greet their neighbors. They don't seem to discriminate, although the peppers to their left have grown mighty and tall, one as high as my chest, perhaps hinting that they don't care for the generous shade.
Speaking of the peppers, we don't have the typical green and red peppers. They were sold out by the time we reached that table at the garden expo. Instead, we have varieties called Jimmy Nardello, Gypsy, and Holy Mole.
The Jimmy Nardellos are long and thin, like a green bean on steroids.
We're supposed to wait until they turn bright red before picking them so we can celebrate the sweetness that crunches between our teeth and pops on our tongue.
One Jimmy, or Nardello if you prefer, has a dark maroon, almost chocolate-colored tip at the end of its pepper.
I wonder if this is how the color comes, beginning at one end and slowly flushing across the skin that wrinkles at the top.
Unlike their cousins, the peppers we recognize in the produce section, they seem to change by way of the sun.
The light.
The heat.
I'm no real gardener.
Just the observer.
The grateful storyteller, waiting for life to unfold.
