As cherries age . . . so must I

As cherries age . . . so must I.

Organic cherries. From Washington State. My American home.

So lusciously, deliciously looking . . . stems helter-skeltered, a twisted rectangular reflection of some over-head fluorescent light sparkling from each of their little exposed rotunded surfaces. Conveniently packaged in 2 pound cello bags, with little air-holes for ventilation.

And the price? Well, they were cherries, they were organic, they were from Washington, they were from home.

I looked. Debated. Decided I just didn’t need them. Life would somehow proceed to another day without my having lusciously, deliciously, succulently enticing cherries.

When you don’t really have a battle plan for the grocery store . . . the aimlessness of life can prevail.

And so I found myself again, wandering near that table display of organic cherries from my American home, twinkling with delicious anticipation from some reflected overhead fluorescent light.

My memory tells me that I bought some. Two cello bags with little holes for ventilation. Honestly, I do like cherries.

My Trader Joe’s store uses heavy duty paper bags, and since you can’t take the shopping carts out to your car in the parking lot, I restrict my shopping to what I can actually carry from the store-front to my car in two hands with a single trip. A necessity of living alone . . . no partner to watch the basket while you fetch the car. And so, there were four Trader Joe’s heavy duty paper shopping bags in my hands . . . my living alone, aging, bag limit.

My little kitchen has very little storage space . . . and so bags of canned goods just stay on the floor in one corner of the kitchen. I sort of know what is there . . . and know to look there for certain things.

And so, later in the week, I found myself hankering for cherries. On more than one occasion I looked into all of the cubby holes in my refrigerator of where I might have placed cello bags of organic cherries with little holes for ventilation.

But there were simply none to be found.

Oh, the confusion of aging. Did I, or did I not do some routine little task. How could I know? How could I not know?

Obviously, I did not buy cherries. Because there were none to be found in my fridge.

And all things cherry were forgotten.

Subsequent trips to Trader Joe’s confirmed that organic cherries from Washington were still available. But by now . . . cherries, for me at least, were simply a moot point of a hapless history.

But last night I was hungry. Living alone, and aging, the urge of hunger may or may not be a desirable thing. Being hungry that is. For the reasons for hunger are complicated and conflicted with the aging that are living alone.

But tonight, I found some yogurt. Some organic strawberry yogurt in my fridge. When you are alone you just eat out of the container. And so I did.

I looked for something else. Something easy. Something canned. No fuss. Eatable directly. And there was a can of sweet green peas. When you are alone . . . why waste etiquette on yourself. I drank the liqueur directly from the can. Savored the sweet peas at the ambient temperature of a summer-hot kitchen.

Yet, I was still hungry. And somehow, when you are alone and hungry, the breakfast food of comfort is a utility food of bedtime. I knew there was a box of Golden Grahams in one of those Trader Joe’s heavy duty bags. A treat. I seldom buy convenience cereals . . . old fashioned rolled oats are far better. And those wonderful cereals from Canada . . . Sunny Boy, and Red River! But I wanted a comfort food . . . a treat. And the nutty sweet flavor of those clickin’ graham wafers was a psychological fix of which I was acutely craving.

And so I started to look.

Found it.

And picked up the bag.

But the bottom of the bag fell out. Soaked. The floor was wet, stained. I picked up another bag. Worse. Then another bag . . . a sticky mess of dark red liqueur with the barest perception of essence of fruity ethanol. My two bags of organic cherries from my home state of Washington . . . illegally making permit-less homemade cherry wine.

And I felt so old.

So out of it.

So frustrated.

Not that I wasted some precious fruit. Not that I had a mell of a hess to clean up.

But frustrated with the realization that I know that I am changing . . . in predictable and inevitable ways . . . and my nature is to fight that . . . but my heart tells me to accept it.

Organic cherries, from my home state of Washington, changed in ways beyond their control . . . and I change too.

As cherries age . . . so must I.

The Refectory Manager