Strawberry Thumbs

“Do we have to take the strawberries? Can we substitute something else for them?” Ahh, the zucchini of early summer. They are lovely to see on those June CSA tables: summer’s first fruit. Strawberries. Strawberries. Strawberries.

My thumbs wince when my eyes connect to those pints and quarts of red gems. Thirty-some years ago, Mom’s strawberry patch in Iowa yielded 50 or more quarts of strawberries every summer. And when it came time to “do strawberries,” our summer tutorial in fine motor skill manipulation began.

If you were old enough to say “strawberry,” with or without the “s,” you were given a little bowl for the stems, an empty big bowl for the stemmed berries, and a quart of strawberries. Your stemming tools: your thumbs and thumbnails. The first quart was fun with a one-for-me, one-for-the-bowl rhythm. Second quart, belly full, thumbs red. Third quart, uncomfortable. The skin under the nail starting to separate from the nail. After that quart, intense stinging -- until we convinced Mom the pain was too much to continue.

When we were around eight or so – and despite Mom’s grimace – Grandma showed us how to use a little paring knife to stem the strawberries. The white-handled Pioneer corn seed knife was to me what the wheel was to the cave man. Mom’s idea of using thumbs was to salvage as much strawberry as possible from little stemmers. I’m sure safety was a concern, but I think freezing 95 percent of each berry rather than 50 percent was a higher priority. This is the same reason why none of the kids were sent into the patch to pick berries – the risk of tramped-on casualties was too high.

With all strawberries stemmed, Mom sprinkled on a little sugar, gave them a quick stir, then spooned these little summer delights into pint bags, and slipped them into the deep-freeze in the basement. Year-round, no birthday celebration would be complete without strawberries over ice cream.

At the first CSA pick-up, I was reminded again what a fresh strawberry really is…picked ripe. Like Mom’s patch, from the CSA table, there is no need to drill out the core of the strawberry with a paring knife. The fruit is ripened all the way up to the stem. So, this week I washed the berries and put them on the table. I didn’t encourage my kids to stem with their thumbs, but told them, “That’s the handle. You can eat it right up to the stem.” But they didn’t, so I carefully removed the stem with a paring knife so they would eat 95 percent of the berry versus 50 percent. The strawberry doesn’t fall far from the plant.

As I approach the CSA table, the strawberries brighten the tables of green, and my thumbs beg for a substitute. Although the little white paring knife, Mom’s strawberry patch, and an endless sea of red quarts are far away in time and space, strawberry thumbs are forever.

Iowa Storms

I’m in Iowa. It’s the annual summer trip away from the Northeast, taking the boys back to the Midwest to play with cousins and visit Grandpa, Grandma, aunts, and uncles. Bill spent Father’s Day weekend with us and then returned home to New England. We’ve had storms two of the five days we’ve been here. Bill got a great one on the Saturday before Father’s Day. My sister’s house sits atop a hill, so there is a clear 360 degree view of the sky. If there was a tornado, you would see it coming – unless it dropped from an air collision directly above the house.

Seeing black waves rolling across the sky makes me shake.

Heavy humidity combined with anticipatory stillness. Uncertainty of the oncoming wind. On that Saturday, there were no tornado warnings, only thunderstorm warnings – and a tornado watch until 11 p.m.

To me, thunderstorm warnings mean imminent thunder, lightning, some wind, and heavy rain. Back at Mom and Dad's on Monday, we watch the storms scream across the radar during a special weather bulletin. And in an hour or so it will pass. The female meteorologist gives the play by play with an assertive voice, directing viewers in its path to take cover. Avoid western walls in your house. Avoid windows. Ten miles from us, where my brother and his family live, 93 mph winds have been reported.

This storm now takes on a new dimension: It’s a derecho. Pronounced dare’-atio, this rarity produces wind gusts of a Level 1 hurricane and is often accompanied by large hail, up to two inches in diameter. It’s a straight-line storm. No spinning, just a huge mass of angry clouds making a mad sprint across the prairie skies.

I don’t recall derechos when I was growing up. Perhaps more high-tech meteorological tools have identified and can track this high-end storm. They can now predict down to the minute when communities will feel the impact of storms. This certainty didn’t exist 25 years ago; back then, on TV a red tornado warning would cover an entire county, and we would head for the basement. And wait. When it blew over, we would come up and look for damage.

In town, the sirens would sound as a warning for residents to take cover. During one of these storms, Mom and I had just stopped in to see Aunt Helen. Uncle Lee was out with the volunteer fire department watching the skyline for storms. Early day storm chasers. Our 5-ft tall aunt held a radio and listened to the dispatches between fire fighters. We walked into her house, and radio in-hand, Aunt Helen immediately ushered us to her basement. I remember the event being more humorous than scary: Aunt Helen wedged the three of us into a stall shower for a good 20 minutes. At home, we would have been playing pool in the basement. Away from windows and on the west side of the large basement.

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A new day… Despite the storms, the heat and humidity has remained high – until this morning. We woke up to clear sunny skies, and a barefoot step outside the back door landed on cool concrete. No storm overnight, still the humidity broke and the temperature dropped. The calmness of the change reminds me of New England. There, with fierce humidity in the air, a polite steady wind from inland to the coast can clear the air and drop the temperature in minutes. No thunder. No storm. No derecho.

For days in New England, we watch the approach of Nor’easters or hurricanes. Thankfully, since we are several miles from the coast, in the nine years we have lived out there, we have only been in the outer circles of the hurricanes, feeling moderate bands of wind and rain. The Nor’easters’ spigots may turn on and hover over us for days, dropping feet of snow or inches of rain. Neither of these weather events unsettle me like angry, unpredictable storms steaming across the wide open Midwestern sky.

How Long Will It Hurt?

“How long will it hurt?” Will was around seven when he asked that question. It was after a skinned knee or elbow. I don’t remember the wound – only those words. And the insistence that I just tell him how long. The begging. Wouldn’t it be a great feat to look at a watch or a calendar and mark the end time or date? How much more manageable pain would be if we had that ability.

Instead, the time of intense pain puts us in a different continuum, bare of minutes and hours and outside the realm of normal. How can there be a normal anywhere when the here and now is filled with this much pain? Must the birds sing this morning? How can the sun reflect onto clouds and hand us the most glorious sunset?

If we could only answer that question. How long will it hurt? How much farther from today will a footstep out of bed be the first one back to the patter of life before that ensconcing pain? As much as it may seem to be a perverse punch to the gut, the fact that life continues around us gives a sense of comfort when that first return step into "normal" is made.

The uncertainty of pain exhausts. The unknown when and where and how forces us to live in the moment. Moment after moment. Living normal life on skates, that slowness induced by pain feels unnatural. Living in the moment and letting go of the control we look for in daily life – another layer of pain.

Concentric circles of pain fall around the person at the center of it. Whether an unwelcome diagnosis or an unexpected illness, an equal but different intense pain emanates from the center of that pinwheel to the first closest circle; the ones who would do or give anything to make that pain disappear but who can only comfort and support the person fighting the fight.

And with our woven friendships and acquaintances, the circles continue to increase in number. And in those outer circles, we want the same for the inner circles: for the pain to subsist. To find that answer to “How long will it hurt?” All of us have been in those tight inner circles, asking the same question. And, if there was any way we could, we would answer that question to alleviate some of your pain.

Instead, it remains the unanswered question, and often times, all we can do is let you know that a piece of our heart is with you every day.

(Another pondering: Untying the Mother-in-law's Tongue.)

Buccaneer Beach Bar, St. Martin

A few weeks ago, just after returning from our spring break trip to St. Martin, I met another office tenant at the entrance to our building. I had sandals on. He wore a t-shirt. Both of us were a season ahead of Boston spring. He shook his head as he held the door for me. “Wow, I am ready for warmer weather! I was in the Southern Caribbean last week and it was a lot different than this!”

“Really?! I was in St. Martin last week; I know what you mean!”

“Oh yeah? We have a time share in St. Martin, but this trip we took our whole family – 11 of us total – on a cruise. We were only on St. Martin the last day of the trip.” He had silver hair and was a generation older than me.

“Which resort is home?”

“Atrium.”

“I know exactly where that is: in Simpson Bay. We stayed just down the road from there.”

“Yes! We love it, especially the Buccaneer Beach Bar.”

“That was our favorite place; our sons loved swimming there while we waited for lunch. We ate at the Buccaneer several times.” How cool was this chance meeting?!?!

“My wife and I took our family to the Buccaneer before flying out that evening; I wanted them to see our time-share and Simpson Bay. We had my son and his wife and my 9-year-old grand-daughter. My daughter, her husband…”

My mind hit a bit of an electric zinger and lost track of his dialogue. He was wearing a t-shirt from St. Martin’s American Cup Yacht Race. I looked again at his silver hair and glasses. He spoke confidently and was friendly.

“Excuse me,” I interrupted, “when did you say you went to the Buccaneer?”

“Saturday, before we flew out.”

“You were there at lunch time,” I explained, leaning in a bit like I was pulling a vision out of the air. “I saw you and your family. Your grand-daughter didn’t look very happy; she had her head down on the table. Your family sat near the bar. We sat right behind you. And you were wearing this shirt!”

“You are kidding me?!?! Yes! My grand-daughter got hit in the nose with the cab door. She had a bloody nose; poor thing, she really felt rough.” Blink. Blink.

I replied. Blink. Blink. “And you ran into a client of yours with his wife, near the bar, and you introduced them to your family.” And now, I realized how I must have sounded. “Oh my goodness! I’m not an eavesdropper, really! But I do like to people watch.”

We were both awed by these chance happenings: that we were in the same place in the Caribbean and that we happened to enter our office building at the same time, having never before met.

I’m left pondering...

First, I think chance encounters and human in-person connections like this are declining because of the advent of ear buds and iThings. If either of us had been so connected to a gadget this story wouldn’t be. _The coincidence wouldn’t have happened._ Of course the argument could be made that more “meeting” is happening via social media. However, this one involved eye contact.

Second, I now firmly acknowledge that people watching is a hobby of mine. Sometimes sitting in a public place I may take a book with me, but if the area is filled with people, I don’t read. I watch. This makes me think back to one of my favorite classes I took in college: Sociology. I wonder what I would be doing if I had majored in Soc?

Hmm, perhaps sitting right here writing stories about people and places.