Essay #1 Second Revision

Apple Sessions

I can still recall how I would wake up early in the morning as a young child.  I would do what seemed to be my daily ritual of getting a shower, which was an attempt to wake me up, but to no avail.  I would get dressed, and while doing all of this; my mother would yell up the steps “Are you awake yet?”  Of course I would answer, “Yes”, but in reality I was only awake enough to answer that word.  I would drudge my way down the steps, and head to the kitchen.  It was there that I would have breakfast.  It was in this kitchen that my life would change simply by eating an apple.

It’s just astounding on how such a simple food could spring up so much conversation between two people.  Food has always brought me close to my family, friends, and loved ones. As Brillat-Savarin said, “every…sociability…can be found assembled around the same table: love, friendship, business, speculation, power, importunity, patronage, ambition, intrigue.  If an event is meant to matter emotionally, symbolically, or mystically, food will be close at hand to sanctify and bind it.” 

Although at the time, these “apple sessions” as I called them, didn’t seem that much of an important matter.  When I think about my past, I realize that it was then that I learned some of the most important things in my life.  This was the time that I would actually just stop and talk with my mother.  Nothing is better than knowing that when I would wake up each morning, there would be someone waiting for me.  I wouldn’t talk to her much during the day after school; I was too busy going out with friends, or staying in my room using the computer to talk to my friends, which now seems like such a redundant lifestyle.  Although it seemed I didn’t give a damn every day, I can still remember no matter what, the same “apple sessions” would go on every morning.  We would sit, have an apple, and talk.  It was very clear that I rarely talked to her during the day, and only left time in the morning. When she would want to talk, or do anything at night, I would complain to myself, because I would rather have spent time with my friends or use the computer.  Unfortunately, we never realize what we have until it’s gone.

I can never forget the day my mother died.  The morning was like any other. We had our apple and we talked about what I did the night before with my friends, and how she was looking forward to going to work that day because she got a friend a gift for her birthday.  I remember something distinctively different that day, which made this particular day different from any other.  Before I left for school I gave my mother a hug, and said to her “I love you.” which was something I rarely had done in the past. I went to school, and the day went on.  As I was leaving school, there were two policemen standing at the entrance with my school principal.  It was at that moment I was told that my mother was killed during a car collision, which caused a “pile-up” on the interstate during her commute home. 

   As I look back on that day, I realize how the days can go by just like any other, and how I never stopped to think about important people in my life, and how they can be gone in an instant.  It struck me the most when the next morning, I came downstairs to the kitchen, and realized that the morning apple sessions were now over.  I would never be able to have that apple, and talk with my mother again.  As I ate an apple that morning, the taste that I loved every morning seemed to have faded away, as if it vanished just as night does with the rising of the sun.  Perhaps, the taste I had for the apple was true, in that I did enjoy the flavor. I believe though, that the true love was not fully within the apple itself, but for what the apple represented to me individually, and what the true meaning was behind the taste of the apples. Out of all of the time my mother and I had with each other, I realize that the love isn’t in the apple, but for the person I shared the apple with. Of course, I enjoy the taste of the apple, but taste is not only what we put onto our taste buds, it’s the memories and experiences we have had.  The older we get, the more experiences we encounter, and the more our tastes change.

The years have passed me by so quickly.  I have moved away from the town I once lived in, possibly to get away from the horrible memories that seemed to have haunted me.  I have decided recently to travel back to visit my mother’s grave.  As I arrive into the town, all of the memories of my youth years seem to flow like music notes in a well played symphony.  I finally arrive at the cemetery.  The cemetery was located on a grassy hill outside of town, and my mother’s grave was located on the top of that hill.  As I approach the burial site, I notice tears begin to stream down my face.  I have missed her so much since our last parting.  This visit to my mother’s grave is more emotional than previous visits, because I came for a purpose.

Next to my mother’s grave I planted a small tree to grow.  This is no ordinary tree of course, but an apple tree.  I now make frequent visits to take care of the tree in hopes that someday before I pass away, I can come to visit and have an “apple session” with my mother.  Someday when I pass away, I can be buried next to my mother, and the one object that kept us so close all of those years long ago, will be with us forever.  Although this idea may be more of an imagery meaning, it still represents to me that even though people I care for, and even myself may no longer live, the tree will keep growing, and just like my love for my mother, the apples will never die.  The apple sessions will always continue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Brillat-Savarin, Anthelme, trans. And annotated by M. F. K. Fisher.  The Physiology of Taste.  San Francisco, California: North Point Press, 1986.