Baby Galas

The funniest name. Organic baby galas. What it does to my imagination--pudgy red-cheeked babies dressed in tulles and chiffons and satin sashes, with red ORGANIC stickers tucked in the folds of their dresses.

But no. I'm speaking of the crisp red and gold fruit I bring to my lips night after night, the last bites of the day, that oozes juices I let dribble down my chin, that calls for licking fingers and picking teeth to capture the littlest bits of its sweet meat. In my crunching frenzy, I almost took the core into my mouth, and so out I pulled it, with two tiny helpless seeds hanging from it. It made me think of the days when I was young, captured ants and roly-poly bugs to harbor in my pink suitcase, and how the most exciting thing to me, a lonely child, was to plant appleseeds indiscriminately, without telling anyone: hoping for a majestic tree to blossom overnight, one that would overwhelm everyone.

Comments

[karrie]

I love this, Wendy. I love your images - especially pudgy, red-cheeked babies.

And I love that you planted apple seeds. I did that, too. I never kept the locations secret, but I never told anyone, either. So I wonder what that means. (Oh, and I never expected them to grow - is that weird?)

I used to bury dead bugs in my front yard. I made little headstones out of rocks and created a little cemetary beneath a tree ... So to me, there is something so perfect about you packing them in your suitcase. (And wow - I had a pink suitcase, too!) It only makes me wish even more that we knew each other as kids. *Sigh*

[Bridget]

Hey Wendy,

I think this is great and share memories of being a lonely child in my grandmother's (pretty magical) garden.

Did any of your apple seeds turn into a tree?

My grandmother spit some apple seeds into her yard about 10-15 years ago and a tree did grow and in its first year as a tree even produced edible apples! Her brother (who has an orchard)told her it was impossible. The tree still produces apples.

[Baby Gala Eater]

Karrie, I'm in full agreement--wishing we'd known each other as kids...us and our pink suitcases. :)

Bridget, it wasn't until I got your comment that I looked back at my post and realized I'd made an interesting typo--where I meant to write "only child" I wrote "lonely child"! Alas, none of my seeds turned into a tree. I figured it was my lot as a child growing up in the city to not grow a tree (though my father had lime, lemon, apricot, and nectarine trees in our backyard!). I love your story about your grandmother. Especially that she spit the seeds.