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The taste of a strawberry, on fresh South Carolina days, on the side of the road where the interstate used to be, for passersby to enjoy food, to enjoy the taste of the sun—a farmer’s own creation held in the light of something unlike any strawberry you’d see under fluorescent lights, or wrapped in plastic on a grocery shelf.

At the corner of “hello” and “nice to see you,” we would taste strawberries; the kind that announced a cheer inside your hand before it titillated your tongue with the imagination of a child’s sketch, a hopeless lover’s arms. This strawberry, mighty and unique, commanded the sun of photosynthesis, bright and fully armed as if to say: look at me. Look. At. Me.

Now, I stand there with my son, hand in hand, slowing down, letting the world blur around us. Cars whirl by, the noise of the modern day fading, and we taste the strawberries together. I watch him lift one to his mouth, bright-eyed, and I remember the sweetness not just on the tongue, but in the sun, in the warmth of the air, in the moment itself. We are tasting the sun. We are tasting the day.

Each bite is a reminder: the texture, the ripeness, the glory of its pomposity. We savor it, and in that savoring, we pause. We breathe. We notice the light through the leaves, the warmth on our skin, the laughter caught between us. Time slows, the ordinary becomes extraordinary, and I go back there every now and again, to remember this, the strawberries, the sun, the slowing down, the joy of simply being together, tasting a strawberry.