mulberries

The mulberry.

A rather obscure berry. No one thinks of mulberries. You have probably eaten blueberries on at least one occasion in the past year and may be looking forward to summer strawberries. But you more than likely won't be going to shop for any fresh mulberries any time soon. When did you last hear someone say, "Man, I'm really craving some mulberries?" Um, never.

Mulberries are the furthest thing from most people's berry-contemplations. But they'll always be a quite special and lovely berry to me because - mulberries played a pivotal part in my childhood.

When I was little, my great-aunt and grandfather lived across the street, and my aunt lived next-door to them. One day I was with my parents where my aunt's backyard met the jungle-like bower that was my great-aunt's backyard; I was sitting on the top of an enormous brown cooler that was more like a small refrigerator, by myself as usual - an only child with dreams and lovely fancies for companions. I thought I was perfectly content like this but my parents thought otherwise.

Next-door to my aunt, on the other side of the chain-link fence at the end of my aunt's yard, there was a pink house with a green backyard. Inside the house lived two small children, one of them, a boy, almost exactly my age, the other, a girl, only a year and a half younger. My parents urged me to talk to the other children when we saw them playing in their yard, but I was obstinately shy and refused. It went on and on until finally my mom dragged me over and introduced me to the neighbors.

The boy was mischievous-looking and sporty; the girl was little with wispy hair and huge blue eyes but a clever tongue. I remember looking at them and being separated by that chain-link fence - then joined by my mom's introduction.

Summer spread out and I remember the bright green of the grass and the smell of it. The boy and girl from next door and I became friends and play-mates. I remember the boy asking me how old I was; too shy, I said, "I'm - " and then my voice stuck; I held up five fingers instead. He, cocky and confident, replied, "I'm - " five fingers held up " - too."

We played on the little slide and the wading pool and had picnics with Fudge Rounds under the big tree in the middle of my aunt's yard and scaled fences and snuck behind the garage and became jaguars. We made up game after game and ran and crawled and yelled about the yard as monsters or babies or spies. I was a tomboy to the core and the older boy and I struck up an alliance and became conspirators against all else. The younger girl tagged along and we pulled her through the yard in the big red wagon.

But the best friend of our childhood was not the wagon, not the slide, nor the wading pool --- it was the mulberry tree. It stood beautifully in the corner between my aunt's yard and my great-aunt's yard. Its branches were placed at the exact perfect spots for us to climb up. Each of us had our own branch that we would sit on in the tree. If we got high enough up we could reach over the fence and grab the best apples in the world off of Jim's tree. He was another neighbor, with a mysterious big yard and gravel driveway and a big black dog and even a tetherball that sometimes we snuck across the fence to play with.

Some days we would just sit in the mulberry tree with our binders of looseleaf paper and draw cartoons and comics - I admit, sometimes mean satirical ones. But even when we made fun of each other in the comics, it was no big deal. We were still friends and would still eat the apples and sneak over the fence to play tetherball together or go into my great-aunt's yard and peep into the clear water of the old birdbath.

But more often, we went on grand adventures. The mulberry tree was our spaceship, our pirate ship, our submarine, anything and everything, and we traveled the galaxies and the continents and the seven seas, held up by its friendly branches. We had the best times any little kids could have in the mulberry tree. We saw the world. We saved the world. We conquered and accomplished amazing feats in the mulberry tree.

There was another mulberry tree in the yard on the other side of my aunt's. One day an older lady who lived there, who also had a big black dog, had us help her pick the mulberries. We picked them and got the reddish-purplish juice all over our hands. We ate them as we picked them and tasted their sweetness.

Mulberries, quirky and unpopular and mostly unknown, are quite dear to me because of this. The mulberry-tree days are in my memory mythological and amazing but in some way it seems like those three little kids are still somehow playing in the mulberry tree now on another adventure. But in another way, a more tangible way, those days seem beautiful, summer-green and vibrant, but so, so far away.

The boy who was my fellow conspirator, spy, and adventurer grew up to be jocky and I grew up to be artsy and we don't know each other anymore. But the little girl, the younger sister, is still my best friend today. Although she no longer lives across the street.

The mulberry tree is still in my aunt's yard which is still just right across the street, but we're not close with my aunt anymore and don't go there. And the house that was my great-aunt's is no longer pink and the lush green shaded backyard there is no longer called hers...

The world of the mulberry-tree days is so expansive and vibrant and always, always full of color and laughing noise. The setting, the address, is the same, but the world now is not. But it will always, always stay with me - especially because I have my best friend to share it with.