THE POSTCARD CAME IN THE MAIL LAST WEEK: “London Semester Reunion.â€Â

It̢۪s been three years since I spent a semester in London, but it doesn̢۪t feel like it̢۪s been that long.

The thought occurred to me: maybe three years isn’t that long. In fact — no — no, it isn’t very long at all. Has there really been enough time that has elapsed that a reunion is in order?

On the back: a notice for special hotel rates.

But I̢۪m still in school here.

Granted, I studied abroad young (it was only my second semester in college) but something about the combination of factors — the very word “reunionâ€Â; the suggestion I might need a hotel room; the notice on the back asking for us to update our contact information — makes it feel so much more distant, more anesthetized, less visceral than it is in my own memory.

In my final year of high school, I didn̢۪t anticipate staying in Fresno.

Like most of the classmates I corresponded with on a daily basis, I wanted to leave this place, to light out for the territories, or really, for any place that didn’t end in “-esno.â€Â

Scholarship money from Fresno State and my long-term academic plans changed that, ultimately, and so I found myself attending to my higher education in the same place I̢۪d lived all my life.

Signing up for the London Semester and spending the second half of my first year of college in one of the world’s unequivocally big and ‘importantâ€Â cities was, in a way, an attempt to counterbalance the condemnation of at least three more years to something so much more mundane than I ever wanted for myself.

It was my escape.

Of course, it was a memorable experience, but of all the things I’m reminded of thinking about it now, I remember, in particular, the strange compulsion that struck us all midway through the semester — a desire for the things we have in abundance here in Fresno. We wanted Mexican food, we wanted fresh vegetables, we wanted fruit.

I walked up and down the aisles of the nearest large supermarket, picking up all varieties of produce: tomatoes, mangoes, strawberries, eggplants (under the deceptive European moniker of “auberginesâ€Â), bananas, peaches, starfruit.

We came home with bags and bags of fruit, hoping, I think, to reclaim a taste of home.

In the end, it was all mediocre-tasting and ended getting chopped and blended, mixed with yogurt and used in smoothies.

It would̢۪ve been a blow to our egos to admit it at that moment, but I think we understood that a decent nectarine was worth more than Westminster Cathedral, than the British Museum, than Leicester Square and all the art galleries and all the clubs and all the shops and the image of European sophistication.

All of it, felled by a peach.

Just this weekend, I pulled over on the way home from a tutoring session and bought some of this season’s first strawberries — three baskets’ worth.

There̢۪s something sacred about that transaction, about paying cash to the suspiciously young-looking seller, about the stain on your sleeve after that first bite and knowing how much better these berries are than their supermarket counterparts.

That basket of strawberries, that’s home — for a few more years, anyway.

Mathew Gomes is a senior at Fresno State majoring in English and music composition. Besides buying fruit, he also spends his money nurturing an addiction to used books.