I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.

And this is the slowdown.

There's an abundance I experience at the farmers market in my Saturday shopping ritual

that makes me think of sacred gardens. I typically gather my reusable bags and make my way to the market closer to lunchtime,

so as to patronize my favorite taco truck which seems to have been dropped from heaven.

While standing in the long cue,

shielding my eyes from the sun,

I listen to a ragtag band of musicians

play covers of Bob Marley songs. Children perform handstands in front of the stage,

one whose knotted hair gathers in a bunch and covers her face.

A father gently bounces his sleeping baby in a sling.

His partner tastes a sample of fig preserve on a gluten-free cracker and considers buying.

They smile after taking another bite, then kiss the baby's forehead.

Just beyond, on the outskirts, an outdoor yoga class is in session, smells of cooked cuisines waft across the crowd.

I wolf down my carnay assada and begin my hunt for the perfectly shaped cucumber, the brightest bouquet of fresh cut flowers,

the smeliest artisanal cheese, the tastiest home-cooked red beans and rice, the most comfortable shirts made from the most natural fabrics.

I am among the crowd who savers freshly harvested honey, those glass containers of golden amber that seem like jarred sunshine.

In this near prelapsarian space of abundance, nothing pleases me like the sight of two people

walking hand in hand through the crowd, slowly making their way from booth to booth.

One carries a bulging to a tote bag of green vegetables and olive bread

with a pitcher of Joan Didion holding a cigarette in hand, and another a bandit

bouquet of sunflowers, which looks like a wand.

...