Dear—,
It’s been a while, I know, and you are patient with me.
This morning I have made you a little dew pot of jasmine tea. I am not sure why this tiny periwinkle pot is called with such a fanciful name, but I like it so. Have you ever held a teapot that fits perfectly in your two hands? This one does. And its smoothness makes you feel that all is well with the world, and always shall be.
I had forgotten about the consolation of wineberries. And of making a date with myself. Until yesterday.
Do you have children? I do. And they are no longer young, but they are not yet old. In the way, I mean, of somehow looking at you and understanding you have feelings too. Well, sometimes they do, very much. But sometimes they very much don’t. Yesterday was one of those days.
I went on a date by myself, because the wineberries are in fruit. Wineberries, I told a friend recently, when I wrote a little note one lazy Sunday afternoon, could save the world.
Yesterday I had also read this article I really liked, about a woman who mostly gave up being a journalist to mostly be a farmer. Apparently this is a thing now. To exchange our bottled-up indoor, techie existences for the solace of earth.
I’m not giving up my indoor existence anytime soon, but I do (mostly) have a healthy outdoor existence as well. Especially when the berries come.
Starting in late spring, it’s red currants. As the days grow warmer, they give over to blueberries and bush cherries. And then I’ve got my hands full (rather literally) for weeks on end. Just when my hands seem to be approaching idleness, the wineberries come, too. And, if I remember to go find them, I cannot empty the world of their abundance. There are simply more than anyone could ever need. More than the birds and the deer and, if there were bears here, more than the bears could eat, too. Wineberries, like I said, could save the world.
The article I liked, about the journalist farmer woman, had this phrase in it about wrestling food from the earth. I believe that’s what she’s doing. It’s what many farmers have set out to do, in growing exactly what people want when they want it. This I understand. And I depend on it.
But wineberries need no wrestling.
There is an Adirondack chair here on the side porch with me. I am putting my feet on its seat. My jasmine tea, in fine china rimmed with navy and gold is on one arm of the chair. A small white bowl (not fine china—perhaps stoneware?) is on the other arm, and it is filled with wineberries. Chilled. Yesterday, when I picked them, they were warm beneath my fingertips. So very warm. And the day itself was almost unbearably hot, except that there is a special consolation to walking through endless fields and beneath the cool of trees, in search of the best set of bushes with the biggest, sweetest berries, minus the poison ivy that sometimes likes to grow beside this edible treasure.
Wineberries look like jewels. Red, and almost lighted from within. Like fire opals. Or those glowing emeralds that people used to think were animated with a god at their heart. And no matter what has gotten you down on any given day, wineberries will cheer you with their jeweled sweetness. They simply will.
The other thing I read yesterday was a poem I decided not to acquire for Every Day Poems, because I thought that even though the poet had a good point about language being a chalice for grief, I also thought that her idea about nature being indifferent meant this: she was looking at Gerber daisies on a day when maybe it would have been best to seek the consolation of wineberries. And, if the wineberries were past season, or not yet in season, she would have felt instinctively that nature itself was a little sad, with those red arcs of wineberry canes, all thorns and prickles, not currently giving their gift to the world.
There are days when I really feel all will not be well with the world. And days when my own little world most definitely feels tilted and turned. So there is this: when the wineberries are in fruit, I must remember them. These treasures that grow in sun or shade, with no wrestling required. (Though, Dear—, you must take care for the thorns. They do ask of you care.)
So whatever you are facing today, Dear—, whatever kind of day you are having, I wish you wineberries, maybe even graced with morning dew. They are the best consolation. Or, they can be simply a gift to crown your day, if your day is already going well. And, if you’ve never had a wineberry, I wish you a future where you will.
As always,
L.L.