Reading: James and the Giant Peach, the Roald Dahl classic, to Daniel. I fell out of the habit of reading to Daniel when he stopped taking naps. Tab puts Daniel to bed at night after I've put the twins to bed, and he reads to Daniel then. I want to start reading to Daniel again, and I picked this book because Daniel saw the recent movie version on video and loved it. We're both enjoying the book.

Background courtesy of
Ace of Space

The Smell of Grapes

On our walk before dinner last night we stopped at Miss Jean's house for a visit. The boys ran around out front, stopping every once in a while to pick up stones or dig in a dry patch of dirt with sticks. I sat on the porch steps and listened to Miss Jean's latest troubles with Miss Diane, who recently left her for someone else after nineteen years together.

While we were talking, Miss Jean's next door neighbor appeared at his gate holding three large bunches of white grapes from his arbor.

"Do the boys like grapes?" he asked me in a heavy Polish accent.

"Yes, thank you," I answered, taking the fruit from him. The heavy clusters of grapes almost overflowed my two cupped hands.

The boys stopped playing and ran over to have a grape. As soon as they bit into their grapes, they each made a face and spat them out. Fortunately, Miss Jean's neighbor had already gone back in.

"Ychh! They have seeds," Daniel said, as he and his brothers ran off to play again. The boys are used to seedless grapes.

Meanwhile I bent my head down and inhaled a heady fragrance I haven't smelled in decades but recognized instantly. Grapes bought at the supermarket just don't smell anything like homegrown grapes.

Like Proust's madeleine, the scent of the grapes immediately took me back to my childhood. There was a grape arbor in back of Nana and Pop-Pop's house when I was young. The arbor was constructed like a small house with grapevines completely covering its four sides and flat roof, so that it was a cool and shady place when the grapes were in leaf. It was large enough to hold a full size picnic table inside. An ordinary peanut butter and jelly sandwich tasted much better when eaten at that picnic table in that magical place.

My grandfather had both dark purple grapes and white ones growing in his arbor. Both varieties tasted good, but I liked the purple ones best because of their color. On late summer days after running about in the hot sun, my younger sister and I would rest in the shade of the arbor and pluck grapes off the vine with our sticky fingers. I remember biting through the sunwarmed skin of the grape to the sweet, juicy pulp inside, spitting out the hard seeds as I encountered them.

Large, flat, heart-shaped leaves covered the arbor's wooden supports, and curling tendrils of new vine wove in and out of the mesh between them. Fallen grapes littered the ground, giving off a fermented, wine-like smell when we trod upon them. Bees buzzed among the grapes, but I don't remember ever being stung there. It didn't seem like it was possible to get hurt in a place like that.

The grape arbor was my grandfather's responsibility, and when he died, Nana had it removed. It's been gone for at least twenty-five years, and yet I remember it so clearly.

Miss Jean gave me a paper bag so that I could carry the grapes home easily. I doubt anyone will want to eat them. Even I have become spoiled by seedless grapes. Besides, these grapes are thick-skinned and sour. But I think I'll keep them for a few days just so that I can pick them up, smell them, and journey back to my childhood.

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