forbidden fruit

This Napa Valley is wonderfully fertile and interesting to a born and bred city girl. Eating a fig picked right from a tree is a life changing experience.  Of course there are grape vines bearing small special clusters that will eventually show up in your wineglass. Lemon trees bear heavy golden lemons, huge when compared with those small yellow bullets at the store. And olive trees everywhere! Little pellets hanging on soft green trees. Most amazing of all are the pomegranates weighing down branches. Big and small, some brown, some turning ruby red. I bought a huge heavy pom at Safeway.

The Armenian writer William Saroyan writes that in the early part of the twentieth century his old world grandfather planted pomegranate trees. No one in the Central Valley knew what they were and after many years he was able to ship some cases back east where they did not do well. How proud Grandfather Saroyan would be to see his dream of pomegranates made real. As the commercial says, powerful pomegranates.

Today as I was separating seeds from membrane and peel I started wondering just why God told Adam and Eve not to eat of that particular fruit. Surely he had created pears and plums and cashew nuts for their pleasure, why not that fruit? Something most biblical scholars don't talk about is God's reasons behind decisions. Why mosquitoes? Why prohibit pomegranates?

According to written accounts, God was very busy. A whole planet, a whole universe to create in just a week. The children didn't know anything and took a lot of His time. They were created as adults, but emotionally and intellectually they were about five years old. Their constantly asking why was getting on the Creator's nerves, and like most parents stopped giving proper answers and resorted to the tried and true, "Because I said so! Now go play and let me get some work done." This turned out to be a rather bad decision, considering who they met. Back in those days serpents, snakes, and all manor of creature spoke English, of course. This day a mischievous and bored serpent decided to have some fun. Hey guys, come eat some of this crazy fruit.  Lets see who can spit the farthest. Oh no, we can't, Father said don't eat that one. The snake didn't want a banana or melon, no grapes would satisfy, he wanted pomegranate, not because he'd ever had one, but just because the kids were so uptight over it. Finally, as bullies often do, he wore them down and they ate the seeds.

Later, after seeing that the dinosaurs were nicely turning into petroleum, He decided to check in on those crazy kids. Adam, Eve, He called and noticed the pair were sticky with red juice and Eve was trying to dig a seed out of her gums. In a mock stern voice He asked if they had been eating watermelon, or beets, or tomatoes? No father, they answered each time, looking as innocent as the day they were made. Well the only other thing that would make such a mess is pomegranate and I know you didn't eat that. Suddenly Adam looked at Eve and she burst into tears. Eve, He asked, have you been eating fruit that I forbid you to eat? No, she lied through her tears. Well Adam, He went on, how did it taste? Too many seeds admitted the addle pated male ancestor of us all. That was the final straw. How many times had He told them not to eat it? And lying about it? He'd had it, Out He ordered. No more Eden for you! If you can't follow the rules, you can't live here. Out, out, before I give you something to cry about. Weeping, His foolish creation stumbled away.

Later, the Creator looked about and noticed His simple children were nowhere to be found. He remembered He'd been frustrated and never told them why they shouldn't eat that fruit. He wasn't done. Too many seeds, not enough juice and it was a pain to open and eat. It still needed work.
Given His workload, it was quite a while before He looked for them again and by then they'd forgotten the garden and their father and he forgot about fixing the pomegranates. Oh well, He thought, how bad could they be? He'd give them a few more centuries to think about not obeying His word, and then they could come back. Satisfied, he put his thought into creating Black Holes. Such fun.

Missing Betty

It is almost three months since Betty died and I am missing her in my own way. I see an article about dogs or funny cats, find shoes in her tiny size, or think about my changing reading habits and compare them to hers. I would like to talk to her honestly, as we did so often.   I come from Brooklyn, where very few of us mind our own business. We have opinions and don't mind letting you know them, whether you want to hear them or not. She set a high standard for mother in laws and gave me a living example of how not to interfere.

Well, she had a head start. She was raised in Minnesota where most people mind their own business, and often don't let one part of the family know what is going on with the others. I respect that, while sometimes am very confused. When her son and I went to tell her we were separating after 35 years of marriage, she surprised me. She said that she had a hard time believing we'd made it that far. And she told me that I would always be her daughter. I'm so thankful I talked to her a day before she died. We didn't have unfinished business. Just a loving message and the hope to see each other when the weather got better.

In June, 1975, we moved to Flagstaff where my husband finished college and we had our first daughter. During those two years and the time we spent in Pocatello, Idaho, Betty and I were faithful correspondents. She'd send me long newsy letters and I'd send her whatever was on my mind. I learned not to complain (to her at least) about her son, though. Family loyalty was first and foremost and don't acknowledge problems out loud. Fix them!

And yet I always knew she was there for me. When I needed daycare in 1978 she drove from Eagan to Minneapolis to pick up our daughter as long as I needed her. When I was pregnant again in 1981, I had a health crisis and when I was released from the hospital, she came with a rickety old trailer and helped me buy and wrangle a new mattress because I could not rest on the old one. She was small but strong and when we moved to a different house I expressed the hope that it would be the last time she would move our washing machine. I rarely offended her, but saying she would be too old the next time, rubbed her wrong.

Right up until she died at age 91, she considered herself to be strong and capable. It didn't matter that her body was not as strong as in the past, and I don't think she understood that some of her choices were not well thought out due to a minor stroke. She lived the way she wanted and acknowledged that living in an apartment would be easier for us, her family, it was not the way she wanted to live or die. I am having a hard time reconciling myself to that. I've seen firsthand how managed independent living adds years to life. My own parents, who I thought to have only a year or two when I moved them from NY to MN, lived another six and seven years. I don't know how much longer my dear Betty would have lived had her family moved her against her will. It could have been the worst action and caused misery. And although I miss talking to her, and reading her column in the Moose Lake newspaper, I'm glad I had forty-two years of friendship, caring, and love.

(After the divorce, I was not an official part of the family on the same footing as my ex-husband, and his brother and wife. So in a way, I was lucky. My darling Betty had become a kind of crazy cat lady and left her legal family a terrible mess to deal with. The cat man came and caught over 60 cats and it will be quite a job to get the house habitable again. But if anyone can do it, they can.)