Strawberry Season

Back in the tangle of our yarden, along the side of the house, grows a patch of wild strawberries.  They are quite established and are larger than most wild berries, but they are still tiny in comparison to the giants at the grocery store.  They don't taste the same either- still like strawberry, but a light, almost dry taste that is only faintly sweet.  Makes you think about how tastes have changed, and what was once quite a treat is now rather bland- our cultivated berries are stronger, sweeter, much more fragrant, but I love the tiny ones none the less.

They remind me of Headacher, for there were wild berries there as well as Wilbur's cultivated patch.  And there was a cherry tree, wishing well, rock gardens, swing, the big circular flower garden in the front full of peonys.  The sidewalk lined with Hostas, rubarb in the side garden, the lane curving back to the cow shed- Billy used to park his car in that lane, and sometimes he would let me sit on his lap and pretend to drive.  I don't remember much about my brother- he was grown and gone quickly- but I loved the way he smelled like gas (he worked at a gas station), his car, that he would 'make the people talk' (the odd little doll house people- Sister Sue has them now, they were hers originally- they were colored, with jointed legs. The father greyish, the mother red, sister yellow....a baby and a boy that was sort of confederate blue.  And a big metal doll house with plastic furniture, some of which I still have.)  Billy had girlfriends and saw ghosts, went away to the service and stayed there.... I don't know him well, but I do remember him then.

And the strawberries.  The field of alfalfa, the cow pasture (they would get out sometimes), the lady-bug houses Mother and I would make on the rocks in the pasture.  The woods behind with the balancing log, the 'old farm' where Daddy would go to pick blackberries and raspberries (despite the snakes), across the road and down the way Wild Cat rocks.  Teaberries growing close to the ground.  Wilbur's squirrel and chipmunk traps- I would let them go and he would get cranky. Roscoe the jockey by the front door, and a metal milk box.  The games my imagination would play in the yard- I would be a horse, a maker of mud-pies, a digger of dinosaur bones.  Everything and all- and in the summer evenings we would sit on the swing sometimes and then have strawberry shortcake or blackberry cobbler for dinner.  And all was well.

I love the little berries- they remind me of way back then- and Max loves them to.  His 'space' is on that side of the house, and he has dug burrows for himself.  He eats the berries, comes inside, begs for some of my store-bought ones. Strange, but they are pink and sweet and everything Max loves.

Today I don't want to go to school, but I have to.  I am in the mood rather to stay home and write, paint in the sun, dream up some books.  Clean a little.  Be domestic and content with homelife- I am tired of the dramas of students, the crankiness of other teachers, the dust and mess and rules of school.  I want easy. Pleasant. Fresh air and ideas that flow into one another, interrupted only by kisses from my manz.  Naps on the quilt in a dark room with the fan turning (we need another fan- but I want another like the one we have, old style and copper colored, rusting in an interesting way).  But money does not grow on trees, or create itself, and work is the price we have to pay.  I am lucky to have a job I love, where I can create and think and grow, and now is my time to get to it once again.