I was walking through our little veggie garden this morning, and suddenly remembered a part of my childhood. In the summer between my 7th and 8th grade years we moved. Which put me into a new school. I met a kid by the name of Tyler. We quickly became friends, and continued that close relationship even after high school.
We lived about a mile away from each other. Close enough to ride our bikes to each other’s houses and then all around the neighborhood. One day I was at his house. I must have been 14 or 15. On this particularly warm spring day I was at his house. We casually walked out the back door of the house on our way to the barn/shop. As we strolled through the back yard, I followed my friend toward a plum tree. This plum tree was the only thing in the back yard. It just so happened to be strategically, and probably inconveniently placed in the middle of the yard. When we go to it, Tyler looked it over. Gently, he checking the firmness of each one until he came to the perfect plum. As he pulled it from the branch, the leaves of the tree shook. He handed to me and said “here, you like plums, right?” I told him “yeah, of course”. I was a growing boy and it was food. We stood there around the tree picking 2-3 more plums and eating them, then seeing how far we could throw the pits.
I’m not going to talk about the amazing taste, or about the soft outer skin, or the sweat inner goodness. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I could describe anything that stood out that made these plums particularly special. What I wanted to share with you is the feeling I had. The feeling of being young and riding bikes with my best friend. The feeling of having a person in my life that made me feel special. The feeling that someone stopped what he was doing, saw a fruit that he had enjoyed picking for himself in the past, and decided to share that wonderful experience with someone else.
Initially when I started writing this post, I wanted to share with you the differences between fresh picked fruits and vegetables from the garden and what you get at the store. I wanted to relate it to how fresh my coffee is compared to the mass-produced stuff you buy at the store. It wasn’t until I really slowed down enough to put my thoughts together, that it’s not about the freshness of the plum that created this memory. It’s about the relationship, and the relationships we have with each other. It’s about sharing the little experiences with the people we care about. I would imagine that if today I asked my friend Tyler about that day or about that plum, he would have no memory of it. However, over 30 years later, I remember how I felt on that spring afternoon.