a kind of community.

Karma was in full force at Findlay Market on Saturday morning. Or love. Or God, or just a neat sense of community. Whatever it was, it felt good.

Findlay is very much a community, and we're very much a part of it. We chuckle at all the predictable habits of the regulars (fully recognizing that we're just as much in that camp and probably chuckle-worthy ourselves). There's the annoying woman who's kind of loud and always talks with the vendors when plenty of other people are standing in line. The tiny, stooped elderly woman who's always impeccably groomed with pulled-back hair and a sort of garish coral lipstick (she wears it well). The group of four men, with their penny loafers and ruddy cheeks, who move en masse down the aisle. The neighborhood folks towing wheeled shoppers.

And then there's Julie. Julie sells Street Vibes every Saturday morning, and she knows no strangers. Everyone who buys Street Vibes from Julie gets a hug. I suspect that others do what Rob does and slip her a five for the one-dollar paper. Julie is a fixture, and she's unfailingly upbeat. Which is why, a couple of weeks ago, her distress at losing her apartment thanks to a deadbeat landlord who blew off his mortgage payments was so real. She fretted over having to find a new place, to come up with the hundred and fifty bucks or so she needed for a moving truck, to find several hundred for a security deposit. Two weeks ago, Rob folded two twenties together and passed them off to her; she didn't even notice.

Yesterday, she was there, with Easter cards for both of us and a gift for me (she didn't find for Rob exactly what she was looking for). It's a red nylon jacket, something that I don't need and that she had no business spending on. But next weekend and while it's still cool out, I'll wear it (she thoughtfully chose my size and favorite color). We were both in tears.

All told, the market was in fine form ... the lady from Thistlehair Farm was there for the first time with lettuce and greens; several of the other small vendors had moved outdoors. The nursery guy was there with pansies. I bought. I planted.

And I planted in the vegetable bed, too. I turned over the soil and added organic compost, then leveled everything off. Three kinds of lettuce, carrots and radishes (that's a post for another day) went into tidy rows marked with white plant labels. The garden doesn't look like much right now ... it just looks like potential, possibility.