Mulberries | Agni - Spring 2002

Mulberries - Rose Moss

I believe that for many Americans my age there are certain triggers that readily evoke our pasts: the smell of cut grass, a wave rolling on a beach, dropping a fishing line in an isolated stream, seeing a certain breed of dog, the taste of soft-serve ice cream (with sprinkles), the music of your favorite band when you were thirteen.

These evocations of the past are not mere memories; you are actually transported, vividly, into the time, the emotional turmoil, however insignificant now, roars back unbidden.  When I smell grass, I think of summers with my grandfather, helping him mow lawns.  The heat and humidity, my fear (which I still have) of hitting a rock with the mower and sending it flying to harm someone, my grandfather's patience with me.  He treated me with respect, correcting me, but never getting upset directly with me.  He knew when I was overworked and would stop for a break.  I fretted over grass stains on my Converse and money to buy baseball cards.  If my mother wanted a carton of Pepsi, I dreaded the walk home.  The six heavy sixteen ounce glass bottles were carried in a cardboard six-pack holder and the handle cut into my fingers forcing me to stop every hundred or so feet.  My grandfather drank RC, so that meant that sometimes I had to haul two from the corner grocery.  It was my least favorite chore, though I usually got to pick up a couple of ten cent packs of baseball cards to offset the pain.  If I pull out my albums of baseball cards today, it triggers even more events from the past.

All of the above came from just thinking about cut grass--there certainly isn't any chance of encountering that smell here for a couple of more months.

When this happens, you are caught in this reverie, this mental replay and you shut down like some science fiction robot doing heavy calculations.  My kids inevitably get concerned if they're around when this happens.  "You alright, Dad? Whatcha thinking about?"  They wonder why I am smiling, or if I am about to cry, or why do I look angry.  When I snap out of it, I want to answer with what I was experiencing, but I sense that they really don't want to hear it; my words or their experience are not adequate to create an interesting emotional connection for us.

When we read an essay that manages to do that, as in this one by Rose Moss, we realize that it takes some life experience to truly appreciate how something as simple as picking some mulberries can drive you straight to your past.  (For me this would be blackberries.)  Ms. Moss, from South Africa, puts her memories into the larger picture of apartheid and how the suppression of dissent marred what is otherwise a beautiful country filled with a diverse mix of perfectly normal people wanting perfectly reasonable rights.  (To be sure, Ms. Moss does not use the hackneyed prose of yours truly...you need to read her essay after all.)

This is a short essay that's packed with symbolism and meaning.  No wasted words here.

We might not have the profound insights in our memories that Ms. Moss has put forth here, but this is her job as an essayist.  Perhaps we just need to stop when we find our own mulberries to pick and immerse ourselves in the memories, see what our minds dredge up for us, let the significance be revealed on its own schedule, but give it time to arrive.

My son and I are going to do some serious house painting today.  I'll remember my grandfather and his patience with a young grandson, knowing the boy needed to make his own mistakes and calling for breaks at just the right time.