Blueberries Three Ways

I am sitting outside at a picnic table on a summer Saturday morning after a friend’s sleepover birthday party the night before. Beautiful shade on my face from the oak tree, beautiful  sunshine on my back, beautiful, round pancakes marred by dark spots like the marks of a person with leprosy or maybe the Bubonic Plague. My friend’s mother has mixed blueberries in with the batter. There are so many of them. I can’t get even the smallest forkful of pancake without puncturing at least one of the squishy globs, dark purple juice oozing out all over my plate, spoiling even the sweet taste of the syrup. With every bite, the juice explodes in my mouth, curling my tongue, making my taste buds shrink away from the offending flavor. My lips, my tongue, my teeth, my entire mouth protests with every bite I dutifully eat. And I force a stiff smile as I swallow the berries, hoping my friend’s mother will think I like them, hoping she won’t notice the way my nose crinkles and my eyes narrow as I try to endure the sharp tang of their taste.

Nineteen years old:

The sun is hot on my shoulders and on the top of my head, so hot that my hair feels as if it is on fire, but these sensations enter my mind only vaguely, eclipsed by the coolness of the dark green leaves of the blueberry bushes, the smooth skin of the berries, the largest ones shimmering with white that looks like a dusting of snow in the sunlight. I put my hand into the bush, and the ripest ones fall into my fingers effortlessly, heavy and firm and the size of small grapes. And as the sweet ambrosia of their juice electrifies my mouth, I don’t ponder how it is that I have come to change my mind about their taste or how my childhood hate has turned to love. I only eat and taste the sunshine and smell the long grass from the field nearby and hear the rushing of the wind through all the leaves.

Last year:

The mist on the grass feels cool on my feet as I walk outside on a summer morning to the berry bush in my back yard. Birds are chirping and June bugs are already complaining about the heat and the sun is just beginning to seep through the leaves of the maple trees. I check the berries right before I leave for work, give them water, find the ripe ones that will be ready for picking later on to have with supper. And I return that afternoon to the bush in my backyard to find it empty, stripped of berries except for ten or twelve hard, green ones that won’t be ready until summer’s almost done. And I look up at the trees to see the birds, blue jays and crows and sparrows, and I wonder which one of them it was who ate my berries or if they all conspired together against me to spoil my evening and steal the ripest ones.