Bestest Friend and I are doing a blog project. Each day we will write a blog post on a pre-determined theme chosen by a random noun generator. The theme for the seventh day of the month is "Contact."
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When I was a tween/teen, my parents would sometimes ship me and my sister off to Pennsylvania to be the collective problem of my mom's extended family. Aunt Debbie and Uncle Lenny would take us camping, Aunt Jackie and Uncle Paul would let us run wild around their small town, including picking wild blueberries on a hill next to the cemetery (heaven help me, this has to be wrong, right? my memory has got to be faulty on this), Aunt Jean would play Scrabble with me for hours, and Uncle Kevin would just throw us all into the car to head to a movie theater for a couple of hours in sweet, sweet air-conditioned comfort.
There's a place for picking blueberries near us and I spend the month of July stalking their Facebook page for days when I can go. They're only open a couple days a week for limited hours, so finding just the right window can be a challenge. We managed to go on Saturday, which is their last day of picking and it seems unbelievable to me because there are so many berries left on the bushes, some thisclose to being ripe, but I am not a blueberry farmer and they obviously know best.
But let me tell you something, friends. While it's fine to go and pick a quart of blueberries with my husband, it's not the same as when I was thirteen and we'd pick so many more than we could possibly eat and Aunt Jackie would make us blueberry muffins and blueberry pancakes and late at night she'd give us blueberries in condensed milk. It's not the same as my cousin correcting my squatting position while my other cousin is running wild with blue smeared all over his face. It's not the same as when we would consistently pick on the youngest cousin and make fun of how few berries she could pick. It's just not the same when you're an adult.
So here's to childhood memories that can't be recreated, but we're so grateful to have.
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What's something that's still fun(ish) to do as an adult, but was way better when you were a child?
Hmm! Funny you should ask, because I did go blueberry picking last summer (when I was visiting my sister in Illinois) and it was so much fun! But, I don't think I ever did it as a kid. The only fruit picking I can remember is apple picking.
ReplyDeletei hope you have a good recipe for gluten-free blueberry pancakes!
We only picked a quart, which came to about three cups. I froze them and intend to treat myself to blueberry goodies in the wintertime when fresh berries are a thing of dreams. What will probably end up happening, if I'm truly honest with myself, is that I'll snack on the frozen berries and never get around to using them in recipes. LOL.
DeleteIf I were to head out on the rural highway west of town, well into the hinterland that would begin after a half hour or so, I would come across little roadside stands selling wild blueberries and pies. I would love a blueberry pie right now, but probably not a mass-produced grocery store one.
ReplyDeleteI don't actually think the grocery store pies are terrible, but there is something wonderful about those farmstand ones.
DeleteI can't think of an exact answer to that question off the top of my head, but I also have warm memories of going to stay with my aunt and uncle in the summertime a few times as a tween.They have a farm up a couple hours north of here and it was always SOOOO fun to go there. Totally different from our suburban lifestyle. They had cows and a horse and wide open spaces and a house with a big screen porch and a nature preserve adjacent to their property. This aunt was always my "cool aunt" as she is 8 years younger than my mom and had long blonde hair and used to be a cheerleading coach. haha. Sadly she now has dementia and isn't the same person at all anymore. But I'll always remember those fun summers and their farm!
ReplyDeleteThis makes me think we should start offering to take some of our nieces and nephews for a week here and there. They'd probably enjoy it, although I don't think I'll ever do down in their memory banks as the cool aunt!
DeleteHonestly? I don't think many things are as fun as an adult. Certain experiences were just...magical...as a child. Summer afternoons spent lazing in the hammock and reading a book and listening to the cicadas - if I could even carve out an afternoon to just laze and read, I'd definitely regularly be thinking about work I should be doing. As a kid it was so easy to stay in the moment.
ReplyDeleteI will say that I prefer picking berries as an adult! My mother used to make us pick wild blueberries and raspberries and they were so tiny and it took forever and she saved most of them for jam and the freezer. Now I pick cultivated berries which are bigger and I basically eat all of them fresh. So the berry picking is, ironically enough, one thing I like more at this stage in life. (Also, my mom got to decide how long we had to stay out and pick - and it always felt like FOREVER - and now I get to make that choice. My kids don't know how good they have it; we pick a box or two of fruit and then go home. I used to have to pick for hours!!!)
I read somewhere that adults just don't have as many "firsts" as children, so it can kind of seem like things aren't as exciting. Many people suggest that adults do new things regularly so that they can experience that sort of childlike feeling of joy and excitement more. *shrug*
DeleteI bet I would really like to pick berries as an adult if we could get the old crew back together! It would be so fun to be out there with my cousin again!
I have never been berry picking, and I have to say that I don't feel like I am missing out. I have been apple picking though!
ReplyDeleteLike Elisabeth, I think some things are just special because they are childhood experiences. When you are so young and have no preconceptions about things and have no real worries (hopefully), things just seem more magical than they are. Or maybe the opposite is true, that the mundanities and pressures and anxieties of adulthood blur away some of the magic.
I think of the summers I spent with my grandparents, walking on the beach at low tide and searching for clams. It was wonderful and I have such a happy feeling when I think back on it. But if I consider going clamming now, as an adult, I think of the impracticality of seeking a shellfish I have no interest in eating, and I think of the stench of decaying fish and the godawful sand getting everywhere. It's definitely an experience that is best kept swaddled away in the gentle folds of memory.
Oh, berry picking IS fun. It's just differently fun as an adult.
DeleteI'm over here wondering if your grandparents were focused on the stench and the sand. LOL. That really makes me look at some of my own childhood memories and consider whether or not those moments were magical for the adults around me!
I loved hearing about your childhood memories. I believe that nothing is the same because we are so open to everything as children. Wouldn't it be great to go back for just a day?
ReplyDeleteHmmm...I think it would be great to go back on a particular day, like the day we went to pick blueberries, but maybe not a regular, boring going to school day!
DeleteOh, what sweet, sweet memories! I've always thought to myself what an involved aunt you are, and it would seem that it's because you had some great role models!! I'm enjoying so much aunt-and-uncle time myself, this really resonated. <3
ReplyDeleteFor sure. My aunts and uncles are very cool and treated me so wonderfully when I was a child. I try to emulate that as much as I can!
DeleteThis is a lovely post. I'm glad I caught up with it.
ReplyDeleteI never went berry or apple picking as a kid. I went strawberry picking ONE TIME as an adult, and I vowed to never, ever do it again. I couldn't imagine why I should since I could simply buy the very same berries at the farm, already picked. What was the point? It was hot, mucky work, and I wasn't getting any better berries.
I love the camaraderie with your cousins. Surely that made your summer berry picking so sweet.
This particular U-Pick farm doesn't have them already picked! If I want fresh blueberries, I gotta do it myself. I'm going to have to start looking for these fancy U-Pick places with other amenities, like already picked fruit!
DeleteI loved reading about your sweet summer memories with Aunts, Uncles and Cousins.
ReplyDeleteI don't think anything is as much fun now as it was as a kid; I don't remember going to pick anything anywhere...I suppose it's just not a South Florida thing. We do have wild blueberries and blackberries all over Georgia and on our new property. I hope to one day have grandkids that I can teach to properly 'pick' the berries. You'll have to share how to squat the right way. 😝
I think there are some things that are way more fun now than they were when I was kid - road trips, lazy days, and going to the dog park! But it is harder because it's harder to find new things to do!
DeleteThis whole blog post is something I could see our beloved Francie from ATGIB writing! The passage of time (and age) can be hard.
ReplyDeleteI think the holiday season holds a little less magic than it did as a child. I still love it so much and find my own way to keep it magical, but there's just nothing like being a kid at Christmastime!
Oh, that's how I feel about Halloween. It's still fun, but it has lost a little bit of its shine, as Francie might notice! Good catch about the ATGIB theme - it must be rubbing off on me since I'm spending so much time thinking about the book!
DeleteOh, wonderful memories :) Yeah, these kinds of memories can't be recreated, sadly, but also, nobody can take them away from you. Like Stephany, I have very sweet memories of Christmas at home with my family.I haven't been home for Christmas in a few years and I know it wouldn't be the same, but I still want to go back sometime.
ReplyDeleteI guess it's just like in ATGIB, now that Stephany has pointed it out. Everything's just a bit tarnished and tattered while in our memories everything is so much better!
DeleteYou know, I don't know that I'd want to have the same experiences as an adult of old-favorite activities. I think the best part of those memories is that they are just that - so you can go back to the you-who-lived-it, the kid who loved it and why they loved it. Adults (as I now, apparently, am considered one...) put the "adult perspective" on everything - like the smelly sand and muck that Suzanne referred to.
ReplyDeleteThis also got me thinking about memories, and how much I love digging up one memory, and then seeing where my mind takes me in terms of other, related memories. I have very few VIVID memories of the first house I lived in as a child (well, 2nd but I was only 9 months when my family moved to the "first house"). But if I focus on one, and picture the house/rooms/what I was doing, then I can often recall many more moments in that house than I could at first. Memory is such an interesting thing...
I read a book once where there was a creative writing class and the first exercise was to draw a floorplan of your the first house or apartment you remember living in as a child. It's sort of amazing how many memories come up when you do this exercise. (Oh! I wrote about this. The book was Writers & Lovers and here's the post: https://ngradstudent.blogspot.com/2022/11/15-drawing-where-i-grew-up.html)
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