Plum Jam
Seven Italian plum trees in our garden. Six are on their biannual vacation and taking the year slow. But one is laden so heavy this year that branches are cracking. She offered up 2 huge bucket loads, which we steamed to release the pits, added sugar and lemon, and then set to simmer.
When the plums fall, I know summer is almost done. But I am still clinging to it's spaciousness. Clinging to this family constellation for the last time. Meanwhile change is cleaning its shoes on the doormat. A first time high schooler, a first time upperclassmen, a college freshman, and a new work situation. If you raise your eyebrows, just that part closest to your nose, feel into it, you get what we are all feeling about the room that is being vacated as college beckons, the morning chill, the windswept leaves.
Here is the mystery. Why ever does the plumtree need to produce 15 pounds of plums each alternate year to reproduce itself once in a lifetime? All it takes is a single plum to drop onto a fertile and moist setting in order to fulfil the ultimate purpose of this tree. That is IF perpetuation of the species is it's WHY. So I propose a much more logical explanation. Considering that only one in a thousand plums ever get to germinate, and thousands get to be spread on our bread and mixed in yoghurt, JAM is its whyfor. Plum jam is it's legit purpose.
Another thought in the mix as the the big blue cauldron cools. Perhaps efficiency is obscenely overrated. I mean, evolving to produce the best result for the lowest outlay is unnatural. Whenever has nature been efficient? Just look at us humans. It takes two people and their entire village some 20 years of countless swim lessons, soccer meets, extra math lessons, piano practice, cell phone data and ... plum jam to perpetuate the species. Really! Could we not just send them off at puberty and be done? Now, that would be efficient. And if fruit trees would produce only a handful of stunning germinating shiners every year. That too would be efficient.
But then, who would want plant an efficient tree, and who would want to grow up in a world without jam?
PS Hit me up if you want some. I have way too much over here.
