Hey there, today's episode is hosted by the poet and writer Victoria Chang.

Hang tight and I'll be back on April 8th. I'm Victoria Chang and this is the slowdown.

I'm Victoria Chang and this is the slowdown. My parents spent most of their adult lives in Michigan.

Even after my sister and I moved away to California, they stayed there,

even though the winters were hard on them.

My father worked at Ford Motor Company as an engineer and my mother

taught high school math in the Detroit Public School System. As a younger person, I never thought much about why they didn't just pick up and leave like we did.

Now that I'm much older and wiser, I know that they probably couldn't because of their jobs and because of money.

When they finally retired, they moved to a small town called Carl's Bad in Southern California. They spent a decade in a house enjoying the sunshine

tending to over 30 bonsai plants and at least another 50 potted plants on the patio. In the side yard they

planted a donut peach tree. One of the last summers before my father had a stroke, we went to visit them and spent a hot afternoon picking the peaches off of the tree.

In eight years, it had become a towering tree and had taken over most of the side yard.

Our older daughter, who was two years old at the time, couldn't reach the peaches, so my mother carried her around

to pick them.

We spent the afternoon reaching for the ripest ones. When my mother wasn't watching, we would take a large bite right off the

side of the peach before washing it. The sweetness would fill our mouths and drip down our chins.

That afternoon, we ate peach after peach, as if we were eating the flesh of our love. The next year my father had a stroke and my

mother's lung disease worsened so they had to move to a place where they could

receive closer care.

I often think about that peach tree.

It was like an angel twisting in the wind, knowing things before we did.

Every peach I've eaten since falls short of those peaches,

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