This morning I discovered something about my garden that was blindly obvious to everyone else but I had completely missed out on. I have been gorging on the very ripe cherries plucked from my heavily laden cherry trees. This is a first for me, usually the birds have them on account that "they are for the birds, Sarah."
When I first moved here the trees were tall but only flowered. Or so I thought. And yet as I think back I do recall some fruit on the trees, in small amounts. I remember squishing them on the path and I have spent many hours watching from my bedroom window the blackbirds hop about the branches as easily as I navigate my sitting room, singing a bit and snacking a bit as they go along.
Today one looked particularly shiny and plump, dangling above my head just about within reach -- and for the first time in many years I reached out and took one. It was delicious, juicy very dark red almost like a sauce juicy, like rain drops of blood, juicy. The taste was tangy, not sour but definitely the piquant side of sweet. I am not dead yet so I am assuming that they are in fact edible and for me to enjoy as well as the birds.
Earlier this week one of my friends commented on how lovely it must be to have cherries grow in your garden and I said they aren't meant for eating, "they are for the birds." And this is why.
When I moved here my Mother would stay sometimes and work in my garden. This was because she was a fantastic gardener and turned every patch into a little Eden, a haven of loveliness and peace. She found pleasure in the work, meditative and took delight in watching and waiting for things to happen. I am a crap gardener. I like gardens, but I don't like working in them, I also don't like them too manicured. (I even have dreams about what to do to an overdone garden and the small minded person "wot did it") I likes em a bit wild, slightly out of control, surprising. My Mother somehow could make this happen AND be an attentive gardener, her gardens were a partnership between her and everything in it. I can't so, I have am very happy for things to do what they will and all the bipeds, even the ones with wings and the quadrupeds make what they will of it, which is mostly enjoy it. She looked at the cherry trees and told me that they probably would flower but that the cherries ( if there were any) would be sour and for the birds alone. She mentioned my Grandmother's mock orange tree when I tried to say but they are cherry trees, and how that didn't have oranges either, but that the blossom was almost overwhelmingly lovely. And I heard what she said, filed it and thereafter I have never attempted to eat a cherry from those trees... until today, when captivated by it's allure I helped myself. And very much enjoyed it!
As I ate that first cherry I distinctly heard her laughing. Her dry delivery a wilful tease... and finally the punchline.
The questions in my mind are: who was she when she warned me off the fruit of the tree? And who was she when she was laughing after I had eaten the fruit from the tree..
