CHERRY PIE

I sat at my computer most of the morning pretending to write, but realized soon enough that it wasn’t going to work as I kept skimming website after website looking for something interesting. I couldn’t write, I had an ear infection and the last thing I wanted to do was sit at my computer and think. I read a book outside for a while, but it got too hot, so I came in, a little antsy and needing something mindless to do. Sometimes when I’m down in the dumps I like to bake. Well, last week Bud and I went cherry and berry picking with the grandkids. We picked about four pounds of cherries and about two pounds of blueberries. Had a blast too!

Well, what do you do with four pounds of cherries and two pounds of blueberries? I went to my daughter’s over the weekend and took her half of the cherries. When I came home, my house smelled suspiciously like burnt sugar or something. My ever-caring, always thoughtful husband wanted to surprise me, so he made a blueberry cobbler—a dark brown hard as stone blueberry cobbler. Too bad, we had to throw it away. He was sad and heartbroken. But I was thrilled that he actually tried it.


Right about now, you’re asking me what does this have to do with writing?

The answer, my friends, is nothing!

That’s right. I couldn’t write today, and I had all these cherries, so I thought, what do you do when you have too many lemons? You make lemonade. What do you do when you have too many cherries? You make a cherry pie.

I had never made a cherry pie from fresh picked-cherries before and let me tell you, it is a very messy and tedious process. I think the tips of my fingers are permanently stained black, especially under my fingernails. I stood in the kitchen pulling pits out of each cherry, staring out the window, thankful that my ear stopped hurting—thank God for Tylenol—and thinking about this past year, the friends I’ve made here on WWW and other groups I belong to and how they have touched my heart. Some more than others, of course, but none-the-less, all have made some impression on me and have helped me be who I am today. It is strange to think how some people entered my life like a ship coming into port and sailing off again with the next new dawn. Okay, that sounds corny and a bit clichéd, but you get the picture. I didn’t like the empty feeling I got thinking about the sailing away part. As I looked down at the pot full of cherries cooking on top of my stove I smiled, remembering something I think my mom used to say when she was happy, “Life is a bowl of cherries,” and I thought, yes, it is, if we make it so.

By the way, the pie was delicious!!

I think I'll have another slice.