Monday, August 07, 2006
Plum Tasty
I’ve been a bit too busy lately, and with a trip to NEPA coming up in less than 48 hours, I anticipate more busyness downstream. It’s not a bad thing - I rather like keeping busy, especially when I’m also keeping up with the house and seeing cool movies and even getting a bit of sleep and exercise on occasion. These are good days, though I have to force myself to raise my head sometimes to notice it. And that, typically, reminds me of a story....
This one happened just a few weeks ago. My mood was so sour that day that my face was probably puckered. Work wasn’t going well; I felt like I was missing out on all the fun life had to offer but I was still getting stuck with a crapload of crap work anyways. The days that I spent in laborious isolation were long and hot, and the nights got so terribly dark so terribly fast. I felt it all getting away from me. I’d lost that connection between what I was doing, and why. I was starting to carry a grudge around with me at work, which was unwise. I was starting to take it out on other people, which was unforgivable. And I didn’t really see a way out.
What I did see, that particular evening, was another chore I had to do before my day ended: get off the bus in a veritable blast of summer heat, go home, pick up the clothes for the cleaners, and head out again to drop them off. O my woeful fate. Yeah, I actually thought this was proof that I had a hard life - that’s how much perspective I’d lost.
So, at 6:30 on a warm weekday eve, I stepped out with my laundry and my sourpucker face. It was a short walk with a light load out to Bluebird Cleaners, where friendly clerks attended to me and my soiled garments quickly and courteously. I stepped out again, then, back into the warmth and light of the evening, my shoulders involuntarily hunched against the burden of my scowl. But at least I was finally really going home.
Over, then, on the other side of both the boulevard and the parkway, I stomped toward my humble abode - when I noticed a goddamn mess on the sidewalk. I’d just wanted to walk quietly, without impediment, as if something that day could be easy for a change. Instead, this. What the hell? Loads of brown goo, little rocks, scraps of… something....
And then I figured it out - it was plums. Dozens of them, hundreds of them. They’d fallen, wine-ripe, from the thick leafy canopy overhead. Most of the year those trees are just trees, but at that very moment they were powerful plum delivery devices. The air was thick with syrup and my feet slipped on the soft jelly carpet. I usually watched for the ripening of the feral plums in my neighborhood, tasting and sampling them as the season matured to fructifection. This year, though, plum season had caught me by surprise. The blanket of sweet compost through in which I stood told me that I’d have missed the season completely in another week. Even so, all the easy pickins had been picked clean - but way up high, back away from the sidewalk, the boughs creaked with bite-sized jewels at the apex of their succulence. From the stained sidewalk I couldn’t reach any of them. But if I worked a little and got up into the underbrush, just maybe....
I stepped gingerly; brambles tore and pulled at my pantlegs. I picked my way among chaotic tumbles of prickervines to a spot… the spot… where a single branch laden with plums dangled within my grasp. It was tricky work but I had to have that fruit. I reached for it; one fell heavily into my palm. The sun’s warmth radiated from its crimson skin. I spat into my hand and wiped off the dust and the residue of urban whatever. With no superfluous thoughts in my head, I popped it whole into my mouth. I couldn’t move from the spot - I’d sunk in among the thick twisted vines. I just stood there, in the middle of a bramble in the middle of the greenbelt in the middle of the block, in the early evening in the early summer, and I ate that blessed plum. In the warm air its nectar was cool inside my mouth; the flesh was luscious and yielding; the vital essence it embodied rocked my body and its rich sweet perfume filled my senses. It was truly a perfect little plum, and I was lucky enough to get my hands on it at the perfect moment. Maybe - just maybe - this summer still had something worthwhile on offer.
I wiped my lips with the back of my hand and glanced down to the viney trap in which I’d insinuated myself. I’d have to be careful to get out without falling into the stickers. My eyes focused on the vines with their myriad hairlike spines. That put me in mind of something: I looked to the leaves, the flowers, the budding fruit.... This was a blackberry bush I’d tromped into. In a month or so, the season would have a whole new mouthful of breathtaking intensity for my appreciation. I just had to keep my eyes open for it to show up. It’ll be right there in front of me, if I remember to let myself see it. And if I’m attentive, maybe this summer will have another refreshing surprise or two in store for me before then.
More later, maybe. Otherwise, more later on after that. Either way, eat ‘em when they’re ripe. It usually only happens once, you know.
