Loose Leaf Notes

Some people go to the Bahamas, out to eat, or exchange gifts for their anniversary.  Joe and I pick apples.  The gifts we receive are the earth’s bounty, winter apple crisp, pies and sauce, as well as time spent together.

Some people have stories of meeting their spouses at bars, online, at work or school.  Joe and I met in the Floyd laundromat in 1987.  He was the new teacher in town at Blue Mountain School, where my sons went and where I taught creative writing.  He was tie-dying t-shirts with other teachers for a school fundraiser and I was picking apples from an overflowing tree across the one lane street.  My excitement over the trunk-full of foraged apples in my car made quite the impression on Joe.  I remember him as warm and well spoken.  We had a mutual interest in alternative education, and there was a spark between us from the start.

Most people exchange rings when they get married. Joe and I exchanged a poem and an apple, which represented the fruit of our love and was eaten ceremoniously. (More on that HERE.) But we got married on a blue moon in June and we both tend to forget the actual date, which is why our anniversary falls to the fall and apple picking time.

We’ve been picking apples every fall ever since we met, and soon after we moved into our log cabin on the Blue Ridge Parkway (in 1991), we discovered an abandoned apple orchard not far from our house, a place out of time that seemed to be there just for us.

Sometimes we visit the orchard in the spring to see the apple blossoms in bloom.  Some years there are no apples because the birds and animals beat us to it, or an early frost killed the flowers.  Other years our backpacks spill over with fruit.   We used to go picking in October but with the emergence of climate change it’s been pushed up to September.

When the kids were little we took them with us, and one year our grandson Bryce picked apples with us.  Some years there are lots of butterflies. Other times we shared the space with grazing cows or turkey. There is always thistle. There are always bees and sweet things like hand holding and reminiscing.

____Our World Tuesday