The Mint Patch Monologue

Tag: apples

  • Inner Eve

    this one’s about craving the bite

    Last year I wrote about apples…growing apple trees, trading with neighbors. I got curious about Johnny Appleseed, and about different varieties.

    This year, I’m thinking about apples again but in a different way. I’m thinking about that apple Eve bit into in the garden of Eden. More specifically, what drove her to do it. A woman blamed for the first sin, the one that invited sin, made us all sinners. What would life look like had Eve had obeyed, what would the stories be then? Would someone else have plucked the forbidden fruit? I don’t know. I do know that deep down something inside of me is craving to make a bold move.

    Maybe I am looking for wisdom, waiting for the serpent to appear to encourage me. Or perhaps I don’t need a snake at all. How else could we know what things are on the other side if we do not take risks and question things we think we know. What is waiting for us on the other side of the bite.

    After all, it’s just one simple bite. It’s not ascending a mountain or traversing the Serengeti. It’s not a hero’s journey, it’s not asking your boss for a raise, it’s not giving up sugar or crawling on your knees scrubbing away the wrong turns you’ve made. What is more in our nature than to seek nourishment, to reach for something ripe. To rebel. To question. To experiment. Eve may have been our very first scientist, a woman who wanted to know more. If we are all truly descendants of Eve, then I believe she has passed down that extra longing. A desire for more, a defiance against what we’ve been told.

    Others would argue that Eve was a fool, easily tempted, and weak. I would argue she was radical; I want to be radical.

    So, what do our “forbidden” apples look like. What are our bold moves to make in order to see what’s on the other side. Leave the job, cut the ties, be completely honest with yourself for once. Abandon bad habits, submit your poem, release your fear of change. Ask for help. Seek out your own knowledge and RUN with it. I come to you today in the form of the serpent and say take that bite. And I say it so daringly, and with sass. If you don’t see an apple, go into your life’s garden and open your eyes wider than they have ever been before. Eve only wound up living in sin like the rest of us, and someone else would have tasted it had it not been her. Shame isn’t new, we all live with it anyways so take the bite. Let someone else blame you for it, no one is innocent. Give something a taste you aren’t familiar with and see what happens. Break rules you have been taught and let the juice run down your arm. Maybe Eve just took one for the team and left in us the urge for taking risks.

    If we re-learn the story about the tree of good and evil, I believe we can choose to live as our true selves, to question what we’ve been told. The apple I’m holding stands between me and what the universe might have in store for me, and today I’m feeling hungry.

    As always please reach out, I do love to chat!

    justicesarah67@yahoo.com

    PS. Tell me about your apple, let’s fool around and find out together.

  • We should talk about Apples

    On my walk this morning I noticed a very sturdy tree, yielding plump and blushing apples. As the leaves have thinned, the fruit has a real  chance to show off in the golden sunlight of mid morning. I thought to myself, how tempting… just one! And then I wondered, do people even eat apples anymore? Of course they do or the grocery stores wouldn’t have displays of those perfectly uniform products all lined up and waiting to be sold by the pound. But my question is more… curious, as always. At what rate do people still plant apple trees, in comparison to a different time. A time when you’d get a phone call from the people up the road and they’d say “ we got a bucket of apples here for ya’ll”. Or better yet, they’d just bring them on over and if coffee wasn’t already on, it would be. Then you’d have a gift on your  hands and what would come first but pies, of course. Apple butter, apple sauce, dried rings, even homemade hooch. If nothing else then a sweet, crunchy snack to bridge your midday slump. What’s better than finishing an apple and chucking the core into the woods as hard as you can throw? Once upon a time school children presented the teacher with an apple and everything fell into place. One of the last times I ever sat with my great granny she had a bowl of little green apples in her lap, peeling them with an old paring knife, the handle and the blade held together with tape.

    That tree I saw was a portal to the past, I thought about Johnny Appleseed,  the mission he embarked on of growing trees from seed and his passion for conservation. I imagine Johnny found his way into our region along his way, I wondered if that tree was a descendant of his life’s work.

    I thought about neighborliness, community, someone to hold the ladder while you reached for the top. I’ve never looked towards an oak tree and wondered ..”who must have planted this tree”… but I did about that apple tree and every other apple tree I’ve ever seen.

    What inspires one to plant an apple tree? Perhaps having grandkids, or just for the sake of watching something bring forth food, something out of nothing. Maybe it’s because we want something to root for, to cheer on and to celebrate, or it might just be to hold hands with something nostalgic. Who had an apple tree in their yard from your past?

    In my yard there is a peach tree. I planted it 7 years ago and we have had nearly a dozen cobblers throughout it’s best producing years. People will warn of bees and other pests, or stepping into rotting fruit but it has been worth every nuisance. Nothing in my garden is more beautiful than rosy peaches in the hot July sun.   

    I needed a plan for Saturday anyways so in the spirit of the past’s portal, I baked an apple pie. I studied the label on a roll-out pie crust from the store and just couldn’t do myself that way, so I cut cold butter into flour and made a delightful mess for the sake of homemade crust. I peeled and cut granny smiths, and decided to find a recipe in an old community spiral cookbook. There is something special about a recipe donated for local fundraising and I’ve collected many of what I call “church cookbooks.” The one I chose was from right here in my own county, a series of recipes compiled by the Extension Homemakers of Boyd County from 1988. I was delighted to discover that the contributor of this Dutch Apple pie recipe was a lady I’ve come to know in the community, she is in her 80s now and I run into her from time to time at the neighborhood grocery store. I cannot wait to see her next, and to share with her this funny story of following her directions 37 years later.  I decided to add a lattice top, picture perfect.  
     

    In case you’re interest has been sparked- apple trees can be planted in late fall or early spring, and I can promise the first yield of fruit will be worth every effort.

    It’s hard to say how much apple tree planting is still alive, but I was happy to see this one. In a perfect world we’d have fruit trees in public parks, everyone would help to keep the trees healthy, and we’d have pie every night together.     

    I hope you get a piece of pie soon.

    Thank you for reading and as always drop me a line, I DO love to chat!

    justicesarah67@yahoo.com