Living or dying

[vaneramos]

December 1: World AIDS Day

While we are all dying slowly, let no one accuse us of living slowly or foolishly. Let it not be determined we spent our days waiting for the sun to unwind and candles to burn down. Margaret Atwood said¹ there's no sense in the trouble of making apple jelly if all you want is food; we do it to hoard away for winter the taste and feel of a summer's day. If I die tonight in my sleep, or stumble on the stairs and break my neck, maybe one of those jars of strawberry jam will fall out of my cupboard into my daughters' hands and they'll remember a hot afternoon in June we spent searching the countryside for a berry patch, where we picked six quarts, just enough to remind ourselves of emerging from the car into full round sweating sweet ripeness, of moving together helter-skelter along the row for the biggest fruit under sodden drooping clouds, embraced by drunken wind. Whatever happens tomorrow, next year or forty-five years from now, someday someone will play the Allegretto from Rodrigo's Concierto Andaluz² and remember I loved driving over Wellington County drumlins on a fragrant afternoon with the windows rolled down.

¹ "Apple jelly", a poem by Margaret Atwood (scroll to the bottom).

² Listen to track 6.