Pitting Cherries is Woman's Work
10:55 PM Edit This 3 Comments »
There is something very beautifully human about working with fruit. We are like all living things in so many ways, fruit being one of them. And yet I have the opportunity as the human type of living thing, to consider the color of the juice as an aesthetic, to consider the feeling of ripping pit from flesh as uncomfortably permanent, to consider the end--in my case consumption of the tart juice, and it's nutrients-- while I participate in the human activity of separating the pit from the cherry.
The body craves nutrients. The body knows what has them, and it craves these things. When I am hungry for meat, I need protein, when I am hungry for greens I need iron, when I am hungry for red fruits I need whatever vitamins in them that they have to offer... and so I find them. Today it is in the crisper drawer of my refrigerator. Hardly the scavenger I once was, but here I am reminded that I am still a child in many ways, as my own mother, a woman who keeps her family fed, has filled this refrigerator with the things she instinctively knows that we will need. Out with the cherries, I need them.
Working with our hands is intrinsically rewarding. To look back, hands bloodied by ripe fruit, and say, I have accomplished that, I have made that, I have conquered that; this is a reward. The gifts of being made in the image of a god; perspective, ego, a love for our own work. I pitted a bowl of cherries. It is not the quaint folk art of your great-grandmother. But I do wonder if that virginic godess felt the way I feel now. If while she made your uncles pie, she struggled with the pride that comes with creation, with the tearing of one fruit to feed your own. I can only hope that she did. And while they called her a good woman, she new much more deeply what it meant. And hoped that I would someday know it as she did. She is a good woman, she does what she ought, they say--never knowing that strongest moral value was the feeling of greatness within her, that her work was power, not because it bought her place in a society of pie eaters, but because she pitted cherries and chose to let herself experience the glory of it.
I choose juice over pie. I like juice. It's easy to drink, easy to make, delicious. It unlocks the complexity of fruits of a variety of colors and textures and allows them to sit together in a cup, open to being enjoyed for purely their flavor and nutritious value. The options are limitless. Fruits and vegetables of every type can be juiced together or separately and served blended, chilled, hot, frozen; whatever suits the body's desire. I create and I consume. Sometimes I create and I share. That is an entirely other pleasure from that of simply creating. But today I am consuming on my own. And it is delicous. A blend of cherry, grape, and blueberry juice. This smooth but tangy glass of red-violet beverage is full of antioxidants, vitamins, fiber, and plenty of pride. Good for the body, good for the spirit, and I believe, altogether, good for the soul.
