North Carolina

This is the scraggly little peach tree out in my sister's backyard in Hendersonville; she's lived there for eight years, and this is the first year it produced. The peaches were small, but juicy and sweet. They would make wonderful peach preserves, but I don't think sis will make any. With just herself and her husband, who picks at a little of this and a little of that, but doesn't really actually eat a whole meal at any given time, she's not very motivated to create wonderful foodstuffs. She does enjoy puttering about her yard; her house is built atop a little wooded knoll that nestles, nearly completely hidden from passersby, at the corner of a major suburban route and a smaller country road. She's completely surrounded by trees and huge, flowering shrubs. Her house started out, I think, as a basic two-bedroom ranch style, but with a full basement that when renovated (before she & her husband bought it) added two more bedrooms, two more baths, and a laundry room. The main floor of the house has a huge living room with french doors opening into an equally huge sunroom in addition to living room, dining room, kitchen, two bedrooms and bath. She complains about how much work it is, trying to keep up with so much space, but of course it's great when she has guests.

Our relationship has evolved over the past several years, and as we've grown older, we've grown closer, and more able, I think, to understand - and even empathize with - the way our own personal choices in life kept us apart for so long. And also, the way our personal choices led us to our current life situations. With understanding - and empathy - a lot of old bitternesses and resentments have fallen away, and we've been able to appreciate each other as "family" - as our very real connection to where our people came from and where they're headed.

I am not an easy person. I never have been. Not with women, at any rate. My relationship with my mother - or perhaps the lack of such a relationship - left me feeling uncomfortable and unsafe in the company of other women. Because my father and I were so close, I suppose - the long mornings and afternoons spent trudging about the woods, the skeet shooting, the horses, the ocean - I always tended (often with less-than-desirable results) to trust and confide in men rather than other women. Thank gawd that's all behind me! Well, it was primarily one man - my ex-husband - and as it turned out, he was probably the LEAST trustworthy person on the face of the earth! I might as well have put my fate in the hands of the pizza-delivery guy or some anonymous convenience store clerk. And, at age 61, living with his second wife, he is STILL dabbling in little side affairs. Good grief, will the man EVER wind down?

Peaches - if fresh, juicy and sweet enough - can provide a great deal of comfort, and that's the truth.

My eyes are blurring. I just got new glasses a couple of weeks ago. What's going ON?

Z