It's my 36th birthday tomorrow - I'm sitting here thinking about ways to begin this blog - what super connection I can grab you with - what snappy thought or link to something deeper. And all I can think about is myself - and then blueberries.
Just 6 short years ago - I was turning 30 - and I was in graduate school. One of those programs where you go to class all weekend long and so it's impossible to miss any time. Anyway - it was my birthday - and I was to spend it in poetry class. My wonderful twin sister came up from NJ along with her husband (or almost husband at that time) We got dressed up and headed into Worcester for a lovely night at Union Station... dinner and dancing. I was wearing red and can remember at some point dancing alone on the dance floor. The next day - as my head felt groggy and my dehydrated body sat in poetry class, I was reflective about it being my birthday - and the wonderful evening before. When we were suddenly encouraged by our professor to go on a poetry walk.... exploring the sights and smells with a pen in hand. We were to get inspired - and jot down as much or as little as we connected to. Good activity - I headed out with my sweet friend Kate to explore the hidden poems around us.
It wasn't long before we found ourselves walking the steep main driveway of the campus... a drop off on one side protected by a shiny new guardrail. There had to be inspiration there somewhere - it was hot, Augusty, and we were trying our best to not get distracted by the distant sounds of dump trucks to end up writing really bad poetry. When all of a sudden... jewels glimmered in the sunlight! Tiny, droplets, round and fragrant... resting, hardly weighing the branches that grew them... blueberries galore awaited our hands and mouths. Poetry Shmoetry... we sat and gobbled and picked and licked until we had to go back to class. I felt like God had baked my very own blueberry birthday surprise to share with my friend. I will never forget that delicious day.
And now - years later - I just spent a week with my two delicious children - reading and re-reading Blueberries for Sal. We did so much pretending...kerplunking random berries we happened upon into tin pails, canning piles of foam "berries" for winter with a real mason jar and lid, hunting for blueberries in our own backyard and finding just one, and repeating favorite lines from the story until Ivy walked around one morning pretending to be mother and saying, "Now, Sal" about fifty times. It was a wonderful summer book... the two stories presented all woven into one made for good conversation with Gavin - I love that he gets so much - we can have little literary conversations and talk about what if's and whatnot.
Anyway, here are a few pictures of some of our adventures.
The little ones reading together - how it melts a mother's heart!
An illustration in the book shows the old-timey kitchen complete with an egg beater. Gavin tried his hand at whipping up some bubbles... only to say how hard it was and how he could have stuck his finger inside it if he had wanted to.
Our one found blueberry - so small and red! It's lack of appeal didn't stop Gavin from gulping it down.
We had to come inside and head deep into the downstairs freezer to find a hidden bag of blueberries (thanks Grandpa!) The children were delighted to get to eat them frozen from their tin pails. They marveled at the frost that formed on the pail's outside and scraped it to lick the ice from their fingers. Oh childhood joys!
Our "canned" berries - more fun to plink and plunk into the pails and make a little music.
We took some blueberry leaves from our bushes and did some crayon rubbings in green. Ivy enjoyed taping the leaves to the table, Gavin enjoyed rubbing the crayon so hard until each vein almost ripped through the paper.
We then added some berries with blue paint - and called it a day!
We had to agree - we had a pretty sweet day together! And who knows - maybe I'll have a bit of blueberry ice cream tomorrow night when we celebrate!
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