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| Thimbleberries, Red Huckleberries, Black Raspberries |
The moon is almost full again. A few hours ago, I was snuggled in bed with my children as it peered in, looking like a glowing bowling ball, through a fat crack in the curtains. The kids dug out the old tattered board-book copy of "Goodnight Moon" from the bottom of a bookshelf somewhere and we read it, there, while the moon peered at us. Now the moon has moved on and the children are asleep behind me, and I feel urgently I must lately say goodbye to the month that passed.
All this long and busy month I wanted to write about July. Now August is half gone. I was going to say to you:
Here, on this hill where I live, in my own native language, I would call this the time of the Red Berry Moon. The salmonberries are few and far between, almost gone... the strawberries are just past their peak, and the raspberries are just right. The thimbleberries are suddenly offering themselves to the world, all humble and red and silky soft, and the red huckleberries, shiny and tart, appeared overnight like crimson pearls peppering the woods. The blackberries are still small and tight and green, and the wintergreen is blooming.One day in July, the kids and I walked to the park, and picked big handfuls of red huckleberries. There weren't enough for a pie, so we mixed them with strawberries, and had enough. That was my first Red Berry Moon Pie. Not two weeks later, we went back and the thimbleberries were ripe-- we mixed them with the red huckleberries again-- after all, they grow right beside one another--and just a few black raspberries we found-- and made little half-moon tarts. They were absolutely incredible. Thimbleberries are so very soft, they don't keep--so you can't buy them, I don't think--but oh my, were those tarts ever amazing.
In those days, one ancient month ago, the foxgloves were just about gone, and the daisies were coming into full glory. July is a dream. Nothing but dreamy days, no end of summer in sight, with fat peas popping in your mouth and red berry juice staining your hands.
Now, in mid-August, the daisies are spent and curling, the fireweed and the crocosmia are dropping their petals, and the hummingbirds, over their love affair with us, are moving on. The teenage raccoons are on the prowl, and the lilies are breaking my heart, blooming just as I'm about to leave town.
I do not love August, the month of breaking up with summertime. August is the inevitable conclusion to April. The fragrant Stargazer and Casablanca lilies that bring me to my knees are the reverse of lilacs-- just as fragrant, in their own way, but tragically so.
I was so busy this last month, my garden was woefully neglected. It languishes, a dendritic tangle of wilting nasturtium vines, of irregularly watered bean vines, and mildewed squash plants, also withering from hydrative inconstancy. I feel sad--so full of woe, in actual fact--to know what it might have been. The daily, family-full life I hold responsible for this neglect is a rich and worthy and choice one, but the heart still grieves for the fallen.
In any case, if there is anything on which to count, it is this: the Barreling on of Time. In this, the Tangled Heartbreak Moon, everything feels difficult: every strand of coming and going and gathering and remembering what to bring and driving around lost and trying to make this or that thing work properly when you read the directions backwards and the broken things over here and the chaos that comes at the most difficult moment, when one needs just the tiniest moment of peace to go on, and the howls of injustice and the howls of pain and the howls of glee and the ever-so-slight kisses on the cheek from a tender young person whom you love so achingly much and yet never quite enough, although you try so very hard every day to somehow make it even astonishingly more than one could imagine-- the Tangled Heartbreak Moon is full, and peering in at me like a bowling ball.
I do not love August, and soon it will be something else, and I wonder what that will be like.
