consolationland

On our street at National Grocery Chain, a cashier is leaving.

His presence has been one more important seamless stitch holding together the social fabric of our everyday lives. When the stitches of presence work together, the fabric runs like silk and it’s too easy to overlook the fine job done by the staff.

National Grocery Chain is selling our store. The new mega-corporation might keep the store going, or might shut it down to consolidate sites. We don’t know. Meanwhile, that grocery is the heart of the neighborhood, not only for shopping but as a gathering place and for safety. Unlike most Americans, we have the great comfort of knowing there is food and a pharmacy right across the street, open 20 hours every day. After work, especially now on our dark rainy evenings, it’s a Godsend just to hop off the bus and to pass by those lighted windows with shoppers coming and going on the street and vigilant staff patrolling and maintaining the premises. Stopping by there for an item or two nearly every day, greeting the regular staff and hearing the news on the street, is always a source of uplift and cheer.

Our cashier is working night shift right now for the entire front end — a half dozen checkout aisles, and another dozen self-serve checkout machines that are constantly beeping and flashing for his immediate help. It’s managing machines, stocking the checkout areas, coordinating the customer service desk and locked cabinets of batteries and liquor, monitoring customers who sometimes behave in distraught or impaired or hostile ways and even run out the door with their coats stuffed with merchandise. On my shopping trip there tonight, our cashier was holding down the fort alone with no backup in sight. When I first walked in, busy as he was he gave me an enthusiastic hello wave from the other side of the store. It’s like I was the Cavalry showing up, when in fact it was the same older lady who comes in every night to buy kale and refill a gallon jug from the filtered water machine.

It was especially special to be recognized that way because he and I have never had an actual conversation. All this time I’ve just cruised through the self check, punching in item numbers for leafy foliage, and on the way out always gave him a smile. Until today I didn’t know his name. On the street I wouldn’t know him because at work he is always dutifully masked up. All this time I’ve kept my distance because he is busy and young and quiet and ultra-sensitive and fine-tuned in some higher indigo chakra manner. Our total interaction time was my noticing his lunch snack — some 100% sugar-free baking chocolate — and saying “Whoa. 100%. You’re the Man!”

Well tonight I punched in the numbers for my mustard greens and two potatoes and was heading out. He flagged me down and said “I just wanted you to know. Today is my last day. I’m only here until 10:00.” He is going to a nearby town, where National Grocery Chain is promoting him to management at a much larger busier store.

So I ran home and rummaged in the pantry and wrapped up all of my 100% sugar-free chocolate chips. Then I emptied all the cards out of my special card box of Catholic Saints for All Occasions, chose a saint card, and wrote him a little message. I put the card back in the box with the chocolate and ran back to the store. During a fleeting break in the customer action I handed him the card box. When I did he asked: Would I come and see his new store? He gave me directions on how to drive there. He clearly meant it. Think of that. Dealing with hundreds of people every day, and here he sounded serious about having one more person buying her kale at his new place. What an honor! Just then, some customers needed his help at their flashing blinking self-check stands, so we waved goodbye and I beelined out to the parking lot. That was just as well. I was getting too choked up to speak, just thinking about the staff at our store.

See, that card box was a treasured keepsake from a young cashier who worked the same shift at the same register a few years ago. She had a rapid-fire straight-faced sense of dry humor, and worked like lightning to get us through the line and out the door. She wasn’t one for chat, and never mentioned her personal life to me, except one brief detail before moving on to the next customer: “I’m your downstairs neighbor.”

She never told me her medical history, or how she was soldiering on just to stand at that register all day. Only later did we shoppers compare notes and piece together parts of her story — at her memorial service, held outside our apartment complex. National Grocery donated and delivered all the beverages and food. Over 60 neighbors got together and shared stories about her. Two of the women with a beautiful garden put in tribute ornaments and plants that still grow in her honor.

I should have done more to get to know her. She led a quiet life; it didn’t seem right to interrupt her leisure time off work. But one time she walked upstairs and knocked on my door, all busy and brisk on errands. Dropping a wrapped bundle in my arms she said “Here ya go. You should have these,” and off she went. I never saw her again. In that bundle there was the box of Catholic cards, and an armful of beautiful long jumper dresses, and an icon of the Virgin Theotokos. As it turned out, her beloved Orthodox Christian Grandma had left her that icon, and she left it to me. In fact, she went all around the building and neighborhood with arms full of gifts. She was one of many fine cashiers, one who for her end of life planning gave away all her nice things to the customers.

There’s a city bus to the nearby town of the new store of our cashier, now a manager; I just looked up the route. It’s a trip worth taking whether they have kale or not.

People who serve are simply everywhere, all the time. Cashiers, truck drivers, librarians, the phone operator who helped me today with a medical insurance question — there is no way to show enough appreciation, for all they do to hold together the lives that bless us.

Well, not really in the rain. It was tucked back under the eaves out of the path of the rain, on a bench under the call box of our building, where clearly someone didn’t pick up the phone in time to buzz in the pizza delivery driver.

Halloween Night. The wind blasted squalls of rain, leaves, and costumed folk of all ages darting through the traffic all in stylish black. At the front door, the two hot boxed mystery pizzas smell wonderful. A bevy of neighbors from the building, coming and going with their candy bags and baby strollers, gather around the pizzas. Is there a name on the box? Sales slip? We text various usual suspects from various apartments. Finally we all vote to move the boxes indoors to the donation table, where at least they’ll be safe from the raccoons and cold wind. I’m just adding a note to the boxes when another tenant pops out of the elevator and claims his nearly hot prize. Everybody laughs and heads out for their festivities. I walk upstairs humming, while my brain happily rewrites Jimmy Webb’s “MacArthur Park.”*

Here’s a bill for $35 from the dental clinic. Fine. Take health account payment card, call clinic, pay by phone. Of course, there’s a pretty healthy wait time. Then the kind patient rep has to take down my data and pore through their records for my account. Then their computer freezes and has to reboot. Then the bill isn’t showing as due? For some reason? Is it ok if she puts me on hold? “Take your time,” I tell her. “I needed a Muzak break.” La la la, la la la. Okay, she’s back. What’s the card number? Oh wait, it’s a health payment card? Yes indeedy! (The card is issued by the state with pre-tax dollars that we state employees can use at this state-sponsored clinic, but I refrain from pointing that out.) Hm. She is not able to process that kind of card in that program just now. Is it ok if she transfers me to another desk? “Sure thing!” I tell her. She transfers me to another number. There’s an extended silence without the Muzak. La la la, la la la. She’s back again. That line does not seem to be answering. Would I like her to text me when that line is free? Would I prefer to call them back? “Sure, whatever. That’s fine. So long as the clinic knows I tried to pay my $35. Sounds like you are WAY busy there.” She explains that yes, they are way busy. “I get it,” I say. “I used to work there at the hospital too.” She sounds more cheerful. I did? At the hospital? What was my job? “Russian interpreter. Lively times.” We wish each other a good day, and somehow it turns into a very heartening call.

At same dental clinic I’ve been trying to reschedule a cancelled checkup, and tried calling for a few days now but just got the voicemail. So I hop on the bus, show up at the dental billing office, and hand them my insurance card. Their scanner can’t read it (?). Luckily as Plan B I also brought my checkbook, so I write them a $35 check. Now everybody is happy, and we all wave goodbye. I head upstairs to my clinic, and reschedule the appointment. The receptionist is happy to help. I happen to know that this clinic’s mission is not only training new specialty dental residents, but also helping patients with grave dental-related illnesses including procedures in the OR under general anesthesia with a code cart team at the ready. These people are high above all my admiration for their amazing work. But “Say, you’re minding the store by yourself?” I tell the receptionist, fielding patient arrivals and phone calls. “Sure am,” she says, “for the past three weeks my partner’s been out. There’s 300 voicemails waiting for me.” I hand her my annual treat for their break room: Trader Joe 100% sugar-free all-cocoa chips. “Recommended by 11 out of 10 dentists,” I tell her. “Trick or Treat!! Your leopard costume is adorable.” We exchange lavish goodbyes, and I head out the door. Suddenly there are footsteps behind me. She’s left the phone desk for a minute to give me a huge leopard-plushy hug. I hug her back.

At work I get a mystery text. “Mary, I have to ask a humble errand. Please don’t think badly of us 🙂 !” Who is this? Is this yet another unsolicited election donation request? I don’t keep any names in my phone, and I know the familiar numbers by heart, but don’t recognize this one. My address book indicates that Aha, it’s the Dad from a young couple in the next apartment building. Here’s another text. “Could you please get the kids’ clothes out of the end dryer at the laundry room near Captain Wing’s place? We have a net bag on the machine. We can’t get back home in time.” I text back. “Sure, leaving office at 5:00. Will head right over there.” At 6:00 I’m at the cottage-garden building laundry room. Oops: Of course! I’m not a tenant at this building, and don’t have a key. I’ll have to go to my place, write a note, then tape it to the door explaining whose laundry is in the end dryer. Wait, what’s happening in the window? The dryers are all stopped, and all the dryer doors are open. In the closest one, there’s a load of children’s clothes safely tucked in a tall net bag hamper on top of the machine. Good deal. I text Papa the update: some good Samaritan beat us both to it.

Back at my place, there’s a gift on the mat: a downstairs neighbor left me a 5 pound bag of organic rolled sprouted oats, and let me know that she doesn’t want payment for it. She and I have a tradition that on the weekends when I sprout and boil lentils or chickpeas, she gets a share too; why should two of us bother cooking the same thing? Then I pack up some Trader Joe pumpkin biscotti and carry them over to leave at Angelina’s door. Her downstairs neighbor pops out to flag me down: “Would you like my queen size mattress? It’s practically new.” I explain to her that in my studio room I just sleep on a yoga mat. That’s about all I have room for, but it’s really kind of her to offer.

* Just listened to “MacArthur Park” again for the first time since, like, 1968. Then to shake off the sensation of melting auditory cake icing I recalibrate my ears by turning on “Moonlight and Gold” by Gerry Rafferty.

It’s a bright sunny afternoon. High school is letting out, and teenagers are everywhere. Outside our building the local bus stops to swap some students off and on. Then in a flash, something goes haywire — and not with the teens. One woman is screaming at another outside the bus. They’re on the ground grappling so hard that one falls right under the bus while the other screams Get the !@#$%^ back up. I sprint toward the bus to tell the driver not to pull out, and so does every adult within a block around along with some of the teens. But the driver isn’t going anywhere. He’s already on his phone relaying information, and in a couple of minutes the bus company inspector drives up and speaks to the women, or tries to over the screaming. I’m not a witness to what happened, and qualified help has arrived. So I cross the street on my way to the grocery store, up a steep driveway making a natural lookout point at the top. The sheriff arrives and tries to intervene. Then a police car shows up with two officers. But a woman’s voice goes right on roaring obscenities. At last in the milling crowd we see a young woman sitting in the very middle of the sidewalk wrapped in her arms, slumped over quiet with a police office on either side of her. Up in the parking lot lookout with me, there’s a family gathered and still watching. They’re a mom with an infant and a flock of small children all about kindergarten age or younger. Their family is often out walking on our block single file, all modest signature clothing and earnest manners, but they’ve always respectfully kept to themselves. Today though the mom speaks to me for the first time. “What do they do in a case like this? Will they arrest her?” My vote is that it depends on what the police find out as they patiently sort through what on earth is going on. The small children take an interest in me, and several ask questions about the various law enforcement cars, the role of the driver and the officials. I make the point to the kids that it is impressive to see a family like theirs, such young people who can use such good situational awareness, keep a level head, stay gathered together, tune in to Mom for cues, and ask insightful questions. “This is why emotional self-regulation is so important,” I tell them, indicating the altercation. “Knowing how to calm ourselves down.” Mom makes a good-humored joke. “I’m not feeling very self-regulated at the moment.” I counter with the possibility that at the moment she is regulating the balance of not only the family, but the woman across the street. We all say goodbye; she gathers the troops and heads on home.

At my clinic I was down at heart and discouraged, waiting to discuss the low bone mineral density results in my DEXA scan, and didn’t notice a button-cute little girl chatting eagerly with her Dad. After a while her Mom came out and the parents switched places, Dad heading in to the doctor’s office while Mom sat in the waiting room with their little girl. In an effortless way the little girl switched from English with Dad to Spanish with Mom, eagerly whispering something with a cupped hand to Mom’s ear and pointing at me. As I glanced up at them, Mom apologized. “She was just saying that you look like a Grandmother.” The little girl gave me a shy friendly look. “Es verdad,” I told her. “Yo soy la abuela de todo el mundo.” She sprang up with a look of joy, and rushed to bring me a little rock from a decorative planter, and drop it in my hand. In English and Spanish I admired the rock, pointing out its good points. She took the rock back, then rushed to bring me another. I pointed out the excellent qualities of that rock too, so she hurried to exchange it for another to see my reaction. What is more fun than to cue the behavior of an adult, and to test the same reaction dozens of times? When Dad came out and the family prepared to leave, the parents got a smile out of watching their daughter, a busy bee still choosing and swapping rocks with everybody’s grandma.

Across the street at the grocery store, Jordan in Produce always has something new to tell me about vegetables, how to grow and cook them. So when my horseradish plant put out its last leaves of summer, I wrapped them up to carry over to Jordan. Along the way there’s a house with raised bed boxes right on the curb, planted with good dirt and double-sized thriving vegetables and flowers. I stopped to admire the dahlias. The neighbor opened the front door and called to me. “Take some cucumbers! We have too many.” As she stepped outside to pick me some I said “Would you like some horseradish leaves? They’re a tender salad green with a bit of a wasabi bite.” She took the packet with a curious look, and said “Just now? I was in the kitchen blending our tomatoes. They all ripened at once, so I was making a Bloody Mary mix. The recipe called for horseradish. I thought ‘What is that? Where do I even get any?’ and there you were.”

The Wing Family took a “vacation.” This is their name for a cross-planetary trip with kiddoes to spend an intensive month or two working hard and caring for older relatives in rural areas. It’s tiring just to type all that, let alone imagine it. But then they came back. They brought me a package of beautiful historic church postcards, and they brought me fresh green kû guā, or Bitter Melons. Somewhere along the way, with all their packing, toting, caring, and travel, they remembered those are Things That Mary Likes. I don’t know how they do that.

Tonight at the food coop I paid for my oats, quinoa, and emmer faro, and headed for the door. There a young teenager flagged me down, bouncing on her toes in eagerness to talk to me. She was an instantly appealing little soul with her expansive hands and excited voice and studious eyeglasses. “Are those YOUR three dogs in the parking lot?” I said “Well, I have no dogs. Are they in trouble?” But no, she only wanted to show me three splendid white husky dogs seated in a row in the pouring rain, watching the door with laser focused attention. “You LOOK like their owner! You look like a person with three dogs! They should be yours!” Well, that made sense. “Sure, I’m dressed like a dog walker, in all this raingear and fluorescent vest.” She said “No no, I mean you look like a Witch. In a good way.” I thanked her for the compliment, and confided that yes, I would love to have three dogs. “You NEED them! Three dogs!” she cried. “Some day. Maybe four,” I called back, as we waved goodbye.

Grocery manager Morrison often has a philosophical question about the meaning of life. While I was buying collard greens he asked “When you were in your twenties, what was the most trouble you ever got into?” I said “Being pulled over by the Moscow police for writing a postcard with my left instead of right hand. That wasn’t done in those days.” He threw his hands up. “Never mind. Can’t top that.”

Today Maizie my old office mate from 1989-1993 rang me up to ask “Where can I find a weasel for my summer house? Not for a pet, but to go after the chipmunks and mice. They’re in the basement. My friend has a weasel who like weaseled his way into her farm cellar, and she leaves him alone and he clears out all the varmints.” I said “That would be Joseph Carter the Mink Man. He has trained minks, and he makes house calls. Here, let me look him up… Oh. No sorry, he’s in Utah. Maybe there’s a franchise near you?” She said “You just pulled ‘Call Joseph Carter’ at random right out of a hat. That’s impressive, in an unsettling way.” I said “I’m just the random person that you thought to call.”

So much of everybody else’s business to mind, so little time.

Chop up this stuff and drop it in the Cuisinart, in proportions to taste.

   “Why would you say a crazy thing like that to me?” My host flashed his lovely sweet smile.

   “I’m sorry!” I apologized. “Nat King Cole –“

   “I have no idea who that is.”

   “Oh. Right.” My mistake. How could I expect him to know Nat King Cole??    

He put down his cigarette and picked up the wine bottle, still smiling. “What an insane thing to say.”

I smiled back. Truce! “I just thought –“

   “Well don’t.” He poured our wine. “I made that dish just for you!”

   “Yes, it’s very good.” I got back to work with my steak knife, and finally resorted to my fingernails. With my ham-handed cutlery skills, dinner might as well have been a plate of bite-sized Rubik’s cubes.

   “Look at you. Acting like a child.” He couldn’t help laughing.

I laughed at myself too. Laughter seemed like a good sign for a first dinner date. Right?

My host was not to blame, that when anyone watched and pointed out my dining manners, I always wanted to shrink under the table. Even now, restaurants don’t feel like a happy place. For companionable eating I just want to buy my own hand-held food at a counter. Then we can find a quiet place to listen and talk and stroll side by side, and watch seagulls or squirrels instead of one another.

He filled my wine glass. “So you don’t like my cooking. Here I really looked forward to your visit tonight. I wanted it to be a nice evening. To make you feel welcome.”

   “Yes yes, I appreciate that.” I wrestled a bite and started chewing.

   “So I served your own food from YOUR tradition, not mine. But that comment you made to me just now? Don’t tell that to anyone. Everybody in the world will think you’re nuts.”

I crunched and chewed some more, and managed to swallow. Everybody in the world? Well, he knew better than I did. He’d seen a lot of that world, speaking five languages including mine, and I spoke not a word of his. He’d sampled fine food and wine all over the planet. And in most cultures, including his, refusing to eat a home-prepared meal was a hurtful insult.

He looked hurt now, but tried to laugh it off. “Look, never mind. Let’s forget the whole thing. What you don’t finish tonight, you can finish next time you come over.”

   “Oh, good,” I agreed. He was inviting me back for another date. “That will be very nice, thank you.” Next time I was going to figure this out and do a better job.

He put after-dinner mints on the table, took my plate to the kitchen, and drove me home.

Here is what I didn’t get to tell him. Instead I’ll say it here to you.

Nat King Cole sang “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire.” His song was on the radio and in shops and on record players all over the neighborhood between Thanksgiving and Christmas when I was small. All of us knew it (well, we knew the first 12 words). The song was always right where it belonged, as the winter backdrop for festivities to share and remember.

We even heard the song right on the streets in The City, when Dad took the whole carful of us for the big holiday trip each year. There we could walk through FAO Schwarz and look at plush stuffed animals, a whole Noah’s Ark, lifesize and lifelike enough to breathe. We could go to the Museum of Natural History to stare up at the great blue whale soaring along under the roof. We could go to Hayden Planetarium and hear a talk and watch a little green arrow trace out animal pictures out of twinkling lights on the ceiling, and tell us all about the Star of Bethlehem. We could go to the Christmas floor show at Radio City Music Hall. We could peek in at the German decorations and violinists at Lüchow’s. We could look in at the jewelry window at Tiffany’s. We could see skaters at Lincoln Center. We could see Central Park, and the carriage horses with bells on, and they let me reach up and pet their noses.

The weather was cold for those hours of walking on short solstice days, all wind tunnel around buildings so tall they cut out the sun. We could get warm standing on the street grates when the subway went rushing underfoot. We could stand near the warm pushcarts in the street too, with their hot charcoal fires baking up great big soft pretzels with kosher salt, and honey-roasted peanuts, and buttery popcorn tumbling inside a window.

But the best warmth was the little bags of chestnuts. Dad was a hero for being our tour guide and for buying a bag for us before the car ride home. In the bag there was heat and smoke and scorched shells to warm our hands. The shells cracked right off along with the fuzzy inside skin. The wrinkly pale little nut brain inside had a creamy soft mouth feel, and a heavenly taste between the best cashews and the best baked sweet potato ever.

At home for the couple of weeks when chestnuts were in the market, it was something special when Mom & Dad brought home a bagful for the kitchen. They looked pretty on the table as a centerpiece, in a pewter bowl with gourds and autumn leaves and chrysanthemum flowers.

A raw chestnut has a hard tough leather hull. If you hack and wrestle off the hull and try to eat a raw one it’s just fuzzy and astringent and bitter skin, and crunchy starch. If you put them in the oven as is, the steam will burst the kernels. Then you’ll just get an oven with shell bits and fluff.

So Mom taught me how to cut a deep cross in the dome-shaped side. That was my girl homemaker job. I loved blessing the chestnuts by carving the sign of the cross in every one. Then when they came hot from the gas stove we had a platter of chewy sugary comfort. We ate our chestnuts with buttered popcorn and hot apple cider and homemade Toll House cookies and Mom’s blended cream & egg & sugar & vanilla & nutmeg nog, and all of us piled in on the sofa watching Nat King Cole.

Then I went off to college, and had an invitation to a real dinner date, and got all dressed up, and found myself facing off with a whole plate of chestnuts served raw. I just figured this was the cosmopolitan sophisticated way to eat them, like sushi-grade raw tuna instead of tuna from a can. Maybe it hurt his feelings and his pride when I apologized for my table manners by confessing that I was only familiar with chestnuts in roasted form. Now, what if I were clever and brave? What if I said “Say, let’s try something fun. I can roast some of these for you right now, and we can have a taste test, and you can see what you think.” But instead, during that short relationship, every time I came to visit, that same plateful was served with no sign of the cross in any of them. I chipped away at several more nuts each time.

In my new town the mature chestnut trees were killed off long ago by The Great Blight. But in older neighborhoods and back alleys maybe there are ancient stumps underground, because you still find little saplings springing up to make a brave fresh start for a short doomed life. Their green burrs are falling on the ground this very week. Sometimes the burrs are crushed open by cars, and then in gingerly fashion (those spines are sharp) I ease them apart to get the nuts inside. So far the nuts are just empty shells. But I always stop and admire them anyway as an American treasure, and think about winters long ago, back when gaslight was a noun and a power that stayed in the oven making itself useful, when Mom & Dad were alive and just wanted the family to be happy.

That night my host put out his cigarette and poured himself a second glass, still laughing. “You’re positively mad. Chestnuts roasted? Who does that? Nobody.” He headed down the hall to get our coats and his car keys.

I helped myself to a couple of dinner mints, eased open his door, poured my wine out under some shrubs, and to cheer up hummed to myself a catchy little holiday song from years ago.

That was a sleepless night, wondering how another date with another suitor went off the rails. Maybe I got it all wrong about Nat King Cole after all? Maybe that song was a deeper allegory about something else entirely that went right over my head? Only years later, typing these words, did a dawning realization make me smile: The Host didn’t have to be attend to my words, not when a whole battalion could have backed me up and set him straight: the no-nonsense pushcart vendors who rule the holiday streets of a city that does not mistake its recipes or mince its words.

It’s National Night Out!

On the first Tuesday in August, Americans have permission to turn off the telly and go step outside and see who lives on their street and wave at them. It’s a chance too, to stop and be very thankful for a street where one can step outside for a stroll even at night.

In school neighborhoods, or for families with kiddos, people take it serious. They register their street in July with the local police, and the city puts that street on a map of goings-on, and then those neighbors can block off their street and put up sawhorse tables and signs and food and music and games and amusements.

Here at our apartment complex, we villagers figure any summer evening is a good reason for a night out. But things here were uncommonly peaceful tonight, so I headed out to the main street to see what-all the action was.

Action was only three blocks away. A circle of people were out in lawn chairs, looking cultured and wholesome. They sure have a nice garden too.

I crossed the street and strolled closer, tuning in to the energetic bubble around them. Fortunately there was a conversation piece right on the sidewalk — a stepladder, dressed in a frilly folk-dancey skirt. “Giant chrysanthemum?” I called over to them. “And does all this constitute a Night Out?”

For an under-imaginative intrusion like that, a default unmarked response could be a flick of handwave, if that. But not this bunch. No, they hollered at me to come right on over and get some refreshments, calling out the various menu options. Then we settled in and got all acquainted. They were quite a crack team at sociability, in both sharing and eliciting interesting questions and answers. In no time we worked out who lived where, who belonged with whom. We swapped household shopping tips about my fluorescent getup (state surplus warehouse $1 on clearance), and our hostess’s party lamp (a luminAID solar lantern. There is supposed to be a tiny superscript R in a circle after the brand name, but I couldn’t get the symbol to transfer in to WordPress).

Here’s a picture of another uninvited guest who came crashing in. “He’s clearly heading straight over to my garden to eat flowers, though he is moving real slow,” one neighbor observed. “Actually for a snail, he’s in a vast hurry,” I had to tell her. “Word is out, you’re growing tasty stuff.”

Pictured here for Angelina’s son Jaeger, who is all about nature denizens of this sort and might have taken the little guy home.

We settled in to a good talk about neighborhoods and community. I marveled at everyone’s very thoughtful planning and shopping for their social; they’d even printed up invitations and delivered them to houses all up and down our main road!

Then it was time to start packing up goodies for everyone to take home.

Wee sampler from a groaning board of tasties. I didn’t have the audacity to accept more.

Not pictured: ice chest of refreshments, hummus, a watermelon cubed in big tempting chunks, and more luscious vittles that people offered to hand over.

These are good neighbors to keep in touch with. They gave me thanks and hugs, just for being there! I promised to not write any personal details about them “except for the snail,” I called as they waved goodbye.

This beautifully tended local flower strip is nothing like the bushwhacking terrain described below. No berries are pictured in this story, lest some reader feel encouraged to go nibble on unfamiliar flora.

After early Mass today I took the long way home, through back alleys and hedgerows and office parking lots and other overlooked shrubbery. In the drought-dried foliage there was a fine harvest of the healthiest fruit — wild berries, five different kinds.

Before a-berrying it’s good to tidy the kitchen and clear some space. (One hour of forage adventure means three or four hours of schlepping around the kitchen later. Will those purple anthocyanin pigments ever scrub out of the surface of my tiny countertop? Maybe; maybe not.) At this time of year, here’s what I bring for the trip.

Safety goggles! Put them on before messing with those bushes.

Two one-quart containers with lids that fit tightly. That way any earwigs or spiderlings won’t pop out of the berries and run around one’s duffle bag.

Well-wrapped feet, as padding from underbrush (and maybe ticks). Every day I wear trousers and two pairs of socks and thick felt wraparound lymphedema bandages anyway, so that’s all to the good.

Stick or rod, preferably hooked, to hold thorny canes safely in place. Tongs could work.

Long sleeves and cuffs. Fingerless gloves could be nice.

Small scissors to cut stems when needed. (One of the berry types will slip its skin if pulled, so one has to twist and roll the berry. That didn’t loosen the fruit for me, so I snipped each berry at the stem base.)

Double folded paper grocery bag, for any unexpected bonanza of wild apples. When they rain, they pour.

Finally, a water jar and paper towels, to rinse dried juice off one’s hands.

Then each separate berry type at a time goes right in a punchbowl of salt water, gently agitated to shake debris loose. (Berries are filthy. We’re not back to Eden.) Then they’re lifted out gently with a spoon and laid on a white tray for inspection. Then back in another fresh salt bath. Then lifted out for a fresh bath with white vinegar. Then a thorough rinsing, and into a glass saucepan to stew in their own juices to a boil. Then one can eat them as is, or strain and crush to make juice. It’s a lot of fuss and mess, but next winter there will be berries ready in the freezer.

The city fruit around here goes to waste, drying on the vine or falling on the pavement. No wonder. Who has idle time to spend, to mess up the kitchen or to stand in the sun sticking their hands into thorny canes, or prickle-edged leaves? Pretty much nobody. It takes a while to stand with a soft gaze and wait for one ripe berry to materialize, pick that one, then watch and wait for the next berry to show up in plain sight. One variety ripens in a counter-intuitive manner: the really ripe delicious ones are not at the top closest to the sun, but at the very bottom. That discovery called to mind St. John of the Cross, who wrote that by stooping low one can aspire high to reach the goal.

It’s a very slow martial art, edging around and peering and stooping and crouching and bending. It’s also a good way to meditate; today, it was thoughts about heavy-value milestones.

“Value-heavy milestone” is a made-up term (made up just now, in fact). These are not the rites of passage intended to forge resilient character and conform an individual to society. Instead, these are occasions crafted over generations, to not only support and welcome people through their life experiences, but meant to feel enjoyable in the moment. These milestones come wrapped in stories assuring us that other people found happiness or pleasure in these moments, and therefore (if we play our roles right) we can make them happy times too.

There’s a small complexity here. The same milestone could be all glowing nostalgia and joy and mirth for a majority, and a miserable let-down for someone else, who is then left wondering “What’s wrong with me?” Some folks reminisce with elation all their life long on their own value-heavy triumphs, while the same experiences make other folks want to go rest up behind bales in the hay barn to recover. It would be interesting and potentially beneficial to gather some deeply safe friends to exchange impressions and sympathy around “summer camp,” “birthday party,” “dance recital,” “altar call,” “Christmas,” “graduation day,” and “first kiss.” (The show-stopper is “wedding night”; laden with expectations and demands, it’s a mother-lode of poignant confidential stories from cherished women acquaintances.)

Thoughts of positive occasions that capsized, and their accompanying sad baffled memories, led to a downcast day or two. A very wise friend advised, “Not every occasion needs to be a peak experience. Sometimes pretty good is pretty good.” I said “Sure, but inherently joyful events should not be a vehicle for causing intentional or gratuitous psychic harm.”

Then, the perspective brightened up with a whole new idea. Sure, we’ve all had anticipated occasions that people insisted would be happy, yet turned out all a-glay. But even if we are poor in value-heavy goodness, what if we go seek out and create our own value-light incidents that promise nothing, and then we alchemize them into something good? For instance, a sudden all-night stay in the emergency room two years ago, walking in circles for 12 hours reading the Psalms, attracting all sorts of patients and their stories, turned out to be a beautiful experience of kindness and warmth. So were two cataract surgeries with delightful surgical staff and the care of Captain Wing and Angelina. So was half a day’s layover homeward bound at Dallas-Fort Worth airport in 2014, coughing and feverish and chilled and disoriented and cared for by kindly church ladies and security guards and men in cowboy hats and the Somali cashier at the gift shop.

Some of us have missed out on, or were bowled over by, the normal range of positive milestones. But even for us, life offers a limitless array of new rituals that we can craft for ourselves. They’re waiting in alleys and hedgerows and office parking lots and other overlooked shrubbery, with cane thorns and sharp-prickled leaves, with earwigs and spiderlings. That’s where the healthiest fruit is, if one looks long and stoops low enough.

There’s an apple tree by the interstate highway near several small parks and bridges and abandoned houses where people are trying to eke out shelter and rest. On one side is a community urban garden, not one of the lush neighborhood patches with heirloom produce but one with like zucchini growing up salvaged car fenders. Outside that patch there is a small green-apple tree. Every year it carpets the street with hard green apples piled up gathering wasps. No wonder: the apples are pure cringe-sour instead of sweet. So those apples carpeting the ground are generally missing one human bite apiece from disappointed fruit seekers.

This year instead of tiptoeing around the mess I decided to pre-empt the issue, and started snipping apples from the heaviest branches, the ones bowed down fit to break. In 5 minutes I gathered 14 pounds. (“I guess it’s like petty theft?” I said to my neighbor. She said “Why? What’s the ‘petty’ part?”) I washed and quartered them up and stewed them soft, peel & all; these are hard instead of juicy, so they needed a little water added for cooking. But first, in a small pot I cut the cores and discarded the seeds (the seeds contain some amount of cyanide), then simmered the cores in water and strained them out to make a very sour clear fruit stock. To blend the apples into sauce I used the fruit stock as blender liquid. The purée has a nice smooth texture, but is truly sour even with some coconut sugar added. It’s still valuable in salad dressings or to flavor other stewed fruits. They’re labeled and in the freezer now.

Yesterday evening I was strolling home and nearly slipped and fell on some slick uneven pavement. Fruit! Overripe fruit was trampled and slopped around all over the street, sidewalk, and the grass strip in between. At 5:30 this morning I took two quart containers and went back for a good look. A real prune plum tree! A couple dozen plums were still sound, but so ripe they were swollen with juice and splitting open. I gathered those from the grass, gave them a bath of salt water and another bath with vinegar, and stewed them right away.

Today after work I felt like visiting Mother N.’s old church and garden. There was no sensible reason and nothing to see; it’s doubtful that her soul is still lingering around there. Still, I felt like paying a visit to a place that was once hers. Nothing was blooming but some valiant lavender-colored phlox, now fading out. I stood there sending up some prayers for her, and then turned to go. Crossing the side alley to the building I glanced to the far end of the parking lot. The fence was buried in shrubbery. What kind? Sometimes weeds are the most interesting thing around, so I took that walk to the far end. And there was a whole thicket of the largest ripest Himalayan blackberries I’ve ever seen, jet black and brimming with juice. These rascally spiny-caned invasives invite themselves into fencerows and lots all over the city; virtually no one even notices or bothers to pick the berries. But these fell right off the canes into my spare jar. After careful washing and drying I spread them apart on little baking trays; they’re in the freezer now, and when they’re frozen they can go into sealed labeled bags. It was a marvel to find such large sweet berries. What accounted for that? Maybe that patch was nourished by Mother N. Maybe she stepped out the church kitchen door after suppers in the parish hall, and threw out coffee grounds or leftover borscht. We can eat them in good health to her memory.

Thank you, Mother!