We're in cautious economic times. People are getting laid off; savings have been cut back dramatically, some to the point of nonexistence, because the financial markets have taken such a blindsided, downward tumble.

The Christmas/holiday season did not see as aggressive a crowd buying everything their grubby, greedy hands could get ahold of, and this past year saw the demise of those delightful doppelganger stores such as Linens 'N' Things and the Sharper Image (doubles of Bed, Bath and Beyond and Hammacher Schlemmer, or perhaps Brookstone– oh-oh).

And yet, for all the paucity and feeling of recession, there is nothing quite like seeing the impressive display of a supermarket's produce bay.

To me, there is nothing quite as awe-inspiring yet unsettling to walk through a supermarket and see the solid walls and mountains of apples and oranges and onions and potatoes and all manner of edibles– all of them fresh, or else. All of them available for pennies on the dollar, enticing with their colorful displays and their promises of bounty and health.

All that produce, grown in all those fields, crowding all those supermarkets all over the town. All over the area.

All over the state, and the country.

To focus merely on the negative economy when one is shopping for produce seems dangerously ungrateful; filled with hubris, even.

So my little weird piece of advice to you is this: if you're feeling down on your luck and poor, go buy yourself some produce and rejoice that we live in these modern times where there is an oasis of plenty, ready when you are, around the corner from where you live.

12 Jan This entry was published on January 12, 2009 at 7:53 pm and is filed under Photoblogging, Soapboxing. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.