Monday, June 27, 2016
The cherries arrive
And finally, feverishly awaited, the cherries arrive.
In an old gallon ice cream bucket, two-thirds full.
I look inside and feel the immediate intimations of the meaning of life.
The pits must be removed.
Ah yes, the industrious, defensive approach to life. Don't dismiss it too readily. The pits must be removed. Once that is done it is all fruit. In this approach we let the fruit take care of itself.
I sit on the back stoop of my house. I have the bucket of cherries, all varieties of deep and pure reds. I have a pot for the bloody meat of the fruit. I have a bowl for the extruded pits. The weather, though summery, is acceptable. I pry out the pits with my thumbs. It is not hard work, but it is long work. The cherries are not large and the more I peer into my bucket the more dazzling the number of the wee cherries grows. One of my hands cramps up from all the same tight motions with different fingers, all contorted to different jobs: holding cherries, holding pits, bracing the cherry, opening the fruit, digging out the pit. I change working hands. Better.
Here is another in the meaning of life held in the bucket of cherries:
How sad I am that there are so very many cherries to pit. And how sad I am that I only have this many cherries. I wish there were more.
I wish there were more and I wish there were less.
Is this how I feel about life?
No.
So why am I writing about it?
Well, alas, I was hoping it would resonate with you.
Good on you that it didn't. Let's get back to those pits then. The fruit will come.
2 comments:
If you were wondering, yes, you should comment. Not only does it remind me that I must write in intelligible English because someone is actually reading what I write, but it is also a pleasure for me since I am interested in anything you have to say.
I respond to pretty much every comment. It's like a free personalized blog post!
One last detail: If you are commenting on a post more than two weeks old I have to go in and approve it. It's sort of a spam protection device. Also, rarely, a comment will go to spam on its own. Give either of those a day or two and your comment will show up on the blog.
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Two things: Once, when I was a camp counselor, the director handed each of us an orange. He asked us to consider the orange deeply, to consider that the orange in our hand is the only orange of its kind ever in the universe. Then, slowly, he instructed us to peel the orange, and as we were peeling, to take in that we are the first set of eyes in the universe to see the inside of the orange in our hand. You can see where this is going. It was neat.
ReplyDeleteI am happy for you with the cherry tree and the cherries. What are you going to do with them? Part of a recipe or maybe just a snack.
Oh, and a third thing: I remember you finding wild onions in the desert once. And we cooked with them.
Really, wild onions? I remember some around Thousand Island Lake, but not the desert ones. That sounds wonderful. Was it big steaks on an open fire, roughly salted and stuffed with pungent wild onions?
DeleteI guess probably not.
I cooked the cherries down in water and agave syrup (desert sugar!) and drained the resulting cherry syrup which I then combine with soda water for soothing, sparkling, light filled refreshments. The remaining cherries I eat with a spoon.