Memories: Installment 6

Final installment for now. But I thought I'd part with one of my absolute favorites.

Try to read it along with "Good Life" by OneRepublic.

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When I was a kid, we had two sets of neighbors, one on each side of our house. In front of us was a wide yard, then an irrigation canal, then a bit more land, then the road, then a huge creek. Behind us was an expansive back yard, a fence, and then a wide open field that was the park. Surrounded by trees and gardens and water, my home might as well have been what heaven looked like to my young eyes.

The creek was wide and mysterious, deep and fast, and its banks were the home of huge snakes and mischievous raccoons, blue-bellied Western Fence Lizards, bold possums and countless rats and mice. The air was positively filled with the sounds of birds, everything from Scrub Jays to Red Tails, Common Crows to Cedar Waxwings, Sparrows and Starlings and half a dozen more. In the canal were the bright-red crayfish, the absurdly loud bullfrogs - half as big as a dinner plate, and thousands upon thousands of tiny singing Tree Frogs. Tadpoles every year numbered beyond count. Dragonflies as wide and as long as my hand darted through the air, along with the honeybees, ladybugs, Tiger Swallowtail and Monarch Butterflies, and even the incredibly beautiful Gypsy Moths at dusk. They bobbed in and out of mom's garden, the dancing heads of crocus, freesia, flox, lantenna, and roses, half-hidden in the soft light of the birch forest mom had planted, all protected by the enormous guardian White Ash tree in the center of it all.

Summer, and everything green and bright. I was twelve.

I'd spend half the morning lying on my back in the front yard, staring at the deep-blue sky through the leaves of the guardian Ash, watching it dance with the blessedly cool summer breeze. It was hot, just the way I loved it. Mid nineties, I think. There would be swimming later, and I'd spend a ridiculous amount of time in the pool, until my fingers and toes were pink-white prunes and my voice cracked from the chlorine. But it was still mid-morning. Dad was working on his brand-new bike in front of the garage. Beyond him, our neighbors' apricot tree hung over our seven-foot redwood fence, bobbing in the wind with its heavy burden of overripe fruit.

The S family had this tree, but never tended it. Didn't care to, I suppose. It was enormous, far bigger than a stone fruit tree should ever get, and it seemed perfectly happy to grow wild. It produced fruit like nobody's business, and the ripe golden orbs would drop to the ground, spent. I don't know what possessed me on this day... but I have never regretted it.

I went inside, and grabbed an old costume from a ballet recital some time prior. I'd been a Pastoral Girl/Maypole Dancer in "La Fille Mal Guarde", and the costume was simply a blue dress with a green apron. I put it on and ran outside barefoot... across the cool grass, the searing pavement in front of the garage, and - true to my tomboy nature - proceeded to climb the fence in a dress. Like the cats often did, I scampered along the top of it like a highway. I often used it to climb up on the roof, or into trees, or really just for whatever reason felt right at the time. This time, it was to the apricot tree.

I know now that I probably should have asked first. But to my twelve-year-old mind, if they'd wanted the fruit, they wouldn't be letting it drop to the ground to rot.

I reached the tree, its burdened branches stooped like old men over the fence. Without a worry of falling whatsoever, I kicked my legs over, and sat on the top of the fence like a normal person would sit on a park bench... and picked an apricot. Without so much as a moment's hesitation, I bit into it, and instantly the juices ran down my fingers, wrists, arms, to drip from my elbows like liquid gold. The sun shone brightly through the leaves as the wind stirred them, and a hawk cried overhead. I finished that one, and had another.

That moment - the warm air, the cool breeze, the hot sun, the sound of life all around me, in the welcoming green embrace of the apricot's leaves, my hard-as-horn bare feet dangling off the side of the fence, dressed in a tattered blue dress with a little green apron, pale and skinny and all arms and legs, covered in apricot juice as I stole the fruits right from the trees - that moment is frozen in time for me. In a strange sense, it felt like I was tasting the very heart of Summer itself, with all the innocence and wonder and fearlessness a child alone can have.

For the record, no - I never got sick.

A part of me clings to that moment in time, when everything was perfect, and worries were for other people. That moment in the summertime is as sacred to me as my own body, and I hold it truly dear. Even now, when I can, I eat apricots - nectarines will do in a pinch - and think of that day.

If you ask me why I'm smiling, I'll tell you it's because apricots taste like summer.