Bill Best, the author of http://www.heirlooms.org/tomato.html and owner of a heirloom seed farm near Berea, is a local legend who I always have wanted to know better. I met him a couple times at the Farmers Market and happened to buy a tomato that's seeds he saved from someone who has kept the variety in Lee County Virginia.

This night, Kaleigh invited me to her house to eat good food and go tomato picking afterwards. But good food takes time, and it was dark by the time we were ready to take our boxes for a ride. Bill Best had told Kaleigh she could pick his left over tomatoes, and there were TONS. He simply had too many and has plans to till the ground, or care for it in whatever way he does, and move on to a cover crop real soon.

So we went anyway. We went to his farm and I got to see Bill Best's farm for my first time in the dark of night. We shone the headlights down the row and used flashlights. I picked as many as I possibly could while who Kaleigh was very meticulous, picked only the ones best for her.

The night was alive and the sky endless. We talked about dreamy things. Kaleigh wondered if there are other universes with people who are just like me and Kaleigh, picking the tomatoes of a local legend. I admitted to my usual narcissism but said that looking up at a sky like that makes me think outside of myself.

Today there is not an iota of me that wants to leave Berea. I need to remember that when there is a cloud over my head that obstructs my perspective. I have so much reason to be grateful.