Our Own Private Berry Bush
Iced white tea with white cranberry and huckleberry. My throat craves coldness, even extreme cold, over heat, even through the shivers of winter. Not sure if I’ve ever eaten a huckleberry, or a white cranberry. The tastiest berries I’ve ever tried were wild raspberries me and two girls I was traveling with found on a tiny tree lining a small pond in the woods somewhere in Canada. I was twelve years old, and my mom and I drove up to Dallas to meet up with some friends of hers, this big blonde bulldozer and her anger-oozing offspring, and a smug older woman with a doctorate who was mean to me when no one else was looking, not surprisingly, the bulldozer’s mother. We all took a three week long road trip that summer, the summer before I started seventh grade, up to Yellowstone, which was beyond imagination, and then into Canada, dropping my mom along the way in either Washington state or Idaho, where she attended a physics teachers’ conference. I remained with the nasty family for two weeks without my mom, and became further acquainted with the dark side of humanity. The stifling effects of trying to be so inwardly and outwardly acceptable: the rage seething out behind closed doors and the hopelessly lost disposition out in the world. I guess feeling so lost or selfless is why so many people cling desperately to the most obvious paths laid out for them, not paying much attention to where some of those paths happen to lead, terror leading to anger when someone dares ask. That being said, I should note that I am quite socially acceptable myself, as an adult, or that is, I am good at seeming socially acceptable.
My sunny and vibrant disposition charms people, and allows me some freedom for visible creativity within those parameters, and my precise and placid outward self-control seems to naturally command respect. For the most part. I choose a very select few to reveal anything darker to, or whom to slowly unveil my messy tangles and geometric webs. I use the social acceptance to move about as I please, and to assure that privately, I can do whatever I damn well want or what I deem best for myself, without interference from the weak-minded. It works for me. But anyway, those raspberries were delicious. Juiciest and softest of my entire life. Me and those two girls wandered off together. They seemed to like to follow me when they noticed me wandering off. I didn’t really mind, because when I could separate them from the rest of their clan, especially out in nature like that, they seemed more free themselves. Lighthearted. The air was chilly even though it was August, and when we found the berries, we didn’t even think twice about it– we just grabbed them greedily off the tiny branches and put them in our mouths. The event stands out to me boldly from the rest of the trip because it was a moment of pure emotional and physical freedom, and a sensual one as well– three young ladies escaping, finding a small unexpected treasure and recklessly indulging, red juice dripping out of our mouths as we closed our lips around more. Luckily for us, they were just normal raspberries and not some woodsy hallucinogen.
Yesterday, I attempted to cheer William and myself up from the extended cold we’ve had by making a cake. I made a Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake with a big bar of german baking chocolate shredded into it, some semisweet chocolate chips, and a package of vanilla pudding mix poured into the batter. I was trying to think of something to look forward to, and I thought to myself, What could be more cheerful than a cake? It’s very moist and easy on my throat.
