Wednesday, July 23, 2014

a red sweetness

A sizzling hot July day. A strawberry day:

Negotiating with a lady selling summer berries in the heat-washed market square, my mother taste-testing and the poodle bouncing on the cobblestones, barking excitedly at seagulls.

Sitting in my mother's kitchen, strawberry juice flowing down my arms as I cut up the berries for jam.

Walking through the city parks in the shade of the linden trees, with strawberry stains on my lacy, white dress.

With perfect moments like these I forget that in between, I was annoyed with my mother for wasting my day trying to find the best berries for sale, I found it hard to breathe in the heat, and some of the berries were rotten. My whole body smells of strawberries and I just forget, happily.