127 ~ Elder, berries
When I was a child my mother gave me the nickname "Strawberry King" (which shifted each year as the summer progressed to "Watermelon King" or "Corn King"). As an adult I've expanded the palette of my palate to include trout, and last week I did my annual tradition of a 'strawberries & trout run', driving further west into the Driftless Area to an Amish farmer, Gideon Zook (the best name ever), for strawberries, with some trout fishing in streams along the way.
Strawberries are one of our few foods native to both Old and New Worlds; true global citizens. I've found and eaten wild strawberries in countries as diverse as Laos and Romania. For centuries Europeans ate mainly a native woodland strawberry transplanted to their gardens. Then the New World came in, and today most cultivated strawberries around the globe are descended from a hybrid cross between a strawberry native to Chile and one from eastern North America.
Gideon was able to sell me seven quarts of exquisite, sweet, deep red progeny of that cross; one quart to eat on the drive back, and six for other uses, chief among them strawberry-rhubarb pie.
As I drove home, another destination for one of the quarts came to mind. In addition to strawberries, I love older people. Like many of us I love talking with them and hearing their stories. To be sure, as we age wisdom doesn't just come and inevitably nest in all of us like swallows under an old bridge. It usually has to be sought and developed. Nonetheless, all elders have seen and experienced some things I never have and never will. It's a privilege to spend time with them and hear their stories, and indeed some have molded the experiences and the grief and the joys of their lives into fruits of wisdom.
One of my favorite elders is a 101 year-old associate of Frank Lloyd Wright, who still lives at Wright's home and studio, Taliesin. She and her husband, an architect, moved to Taliesin in 1952 to work with Wright, and she's still there (her husband passed away several years ago). And she's sharp as a tack. Amazing, and wonderful, and with a wealth of wonderful stories. What better person to gift a box of Gideon's strawberries? And for a sweetheart like her, I like that strawberries are in the rose family, Rosaceae, and heart-shaped.
And so a few days ago, on a pristine summer morning, I drove up to that extraordinary house with a quart of Gideon’s gems, and left them for a centenarian with a beautiful soul. It occurred to me that life felt perfect, that for at least one day, one morning, nothing could be better than this.
And so here's a suggestion: In the next few days, call or visit someone older than you, and listen as they tell a story. Time is precious, and so are they. It may be a sweet gift to both your lives.
If the spirit moves
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