by David Mas Matsumoto
Lovely and sad. But not depressing. How is that possible, you may ask, to be sad but not depressing? Read it and see.
Its a personal, meandering, pondering year on a family farm growing grapes and peaches. It takes place entirely on the farm in California and entirely in the mind of the author...yet his mind roams far and wide and deep, down to the wiggly worms in the soil and the leaf borers mining his trees for gold. He touches on history but I wish he'd gone farther--we know his grandfather bought the farm but we hear only the scant facts of their lives and hopes and dreams. His father helps out on the farm, but I long to hear his story, too. Maybe another book, someday?
Oddly enough, it neither bored me nor put me to sleep as such simple, quiet memoirs frequently do these days. I seem to have lost the ability to sit and savor. Retirement--oh, that blessed fantasy!--might give it back to me.
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