Figs to Remember
When I was a little girl life was so simple. The summer months were long and the playtime was imaginative. My grandmother’s home was my haven. She has been gone for a long time and my grandfather a long time before her. There are times that I remember just like it was happening at this very moment.
There is a giant fig tree growing at the side of my house. The large limbs and deep green foliage reach the top of my two story roof and this year as even in the past it is heavily laden with slowly ripening fruit. I have in all of the years of living here have never been able to beat the onset of Summer rain causing them to burst and then slowly rotting on the tree, the bees that swarm and suck the nectar or the birds that spend a great deal of time scavenging the fruit that grow two stories up where I can not reach.
This morning I decided that I was going to pick some of these oval shaped fruit for a friend of mine and of course for me too. There are still hundreds hanging, readying for their skin to change to a pinkest purple and with just a slightly soft to the touch of my two fingers as I pluck them from their hiding places under the large green leaves.
I used to do the same as a child. Next door to my grandmother’s home the lady who lived there invited us to pick all we wanted and for each one that we picked of course two of them hit the bottom of our tummy. They are sweet and the seeds are tiny and grainy. The skin is interesting as it has a soft furry texture that doesn’t detour me at all from sinking my teeth into the fresh picked fruit. I figure that the rain showers were God’s way of scattering the germs or perhaps they gave some sort of immunity from being sad or having the loss of the memories that I am speaking of now.
We would pull the ladders out of the old tin covered garage and place them between the limbs of those 3 or 4 mature trees. Our reach was to the top and we picked and picked until my grandmother decided she had just enough to make her famous fig preserves to go with biscuits on Sunday mornings at breakfast time. I recall the smell of the figs steeping in the sugar and boiling into a gooey mess of dark colored treats. The jars were lined up on the marble table and filled to the brim. I would screw on the caps and rings so that she could put the in another pot of hot water so that the lids would seal shut saving the figs for almost eternity.
I thought about the time I got stung by a wasp when I least expected it while reaching for his claimed prize. The pain was terrible but Mrs. Rencher was quick to put snuff on the sting to help with the swelling. As I plucked my fruit this morning at 8am I was not stung or deterred by my sticky hands. I had traveled back to where I was simple and innocent, where the summers were long and the playtime was imaginative.
I was home again.
I miss you Nanny, 20 long years have slipped away but I still hold the memories of how I can see you like yesterday. I now make my own fig preserves. Thank you for helping me to learn and bringing me home again this very morning.
There is a giant fig tree growing at the side of my house. The large limbs and deep green foliage reach the top of my two story roof and this year as even in the past it is heavily laden with slowly ripening fruit. I have in all of the years of living here have never been able to beat the onset of Summer rain causing them to burst and then slowly rotting on the tree, the bees that swarm and suck the nectar or the birds that spend a great deal of time scavenging the fruit that grow two stories up where I can not reach.
This morning I decided that I was going to pick some of these oval shaped fruit for a friend of mine and of course for me too. There are still hundreds hanging, readying for their skin to change to a pinkest purple and with just a slightly soft to the touch of my two fingers as I pluck them from their hiding places under the large green leaves.
I used to do the same as a child. Next door to my grandmother’s home the lady who lived there invited us to pick all we wanted and for each one that we picked of course two of them hit the bottom of our tummy. They are sweet and the seeds are tiny and grainy. The skin is interesting as it has a soft furry texture that doesn’t detour me at all from sinking my teeth into the fresh picked fruit. I figure that the rain showers were God’s way of scattering the germs or perhaps they gave some sort of immunity from being sad or having the loss of the memories that I am speaking of now.
We would pull the ladders out of the old tin covered garage and place them between the limbs of those 3 or 4 mature trees. Our reach was to the top and we picked and picked until my grandmother decided she had just enough to make her famous fig preserves to go with biscuits on Sunday mornings at breakfast time. I recall the smell of the figs steeping in the sugar and boiling into a gooey mess of dark colored treats. The jars were lined up on the marble table and filled to the brim. I would screw on the caps and rings so that she could put the in another pot of hot water so that the lids would seal shut saving the figs for almost eternity.
I thought about the time I got stung by a wasp when I least expected it while reaching for his claimed prize. The pain was terrible but Mrs. Rencher was quick to put snuff on the sting to help with the swelling. As I plucked my fruit this morning at 8am I was not stung or deterred by my sticky hands. I had traveled back to where I was simple and innocent, where the summers were long and the playtime was imaginative.
I was home again.
I miss you Nanny, 20 long years have slipped away but I still hold the memories of how I can see you like yesterday. I now make my own fig preserves. Thank you for helping me to learn and bringing me home again this very morning.