Yesterday I took my girls to Rowe's House of Apples for u-pick. This is the place we would stop when I was younger, on our way back to Connecticut, for fresh Maine apples and old fashioned homemade doughnuts. It's a place full of nostalgia for me.
We were sad to see the big sign that said "U-Pick is All Picked Out" as we drove in the parking lot. I took the girls in the store and was immediately greeted with the familiar smell of cinnamon, apples, and fresh fried doughnuts. We got a dozen doughnuts and I perused the varieties of apples available. Macouns, Liberty's, Honeycrisp, McIntosh, Cortland, and several other varieties I wasn't as familiar with. While I eyeballed the bags of giant Honeycrisps pretty hard, Isabelle chose a bag of Cortlands. Cortlands it was.
It was a bright sunny day at home and my kitchen warmed right up and soon all I could smell was something like Rowe's House of Apples. I leaned over the bag of Cortlands and gave them a sniff. Oh, goodness, I sighed. I leaned in and drunk in the smell. It was that wonderful scent I had always equated with that place of nostalgia, but it was in my home, in a bag of delicious apples.
Each variety of apples have their own distinct smell. I suppose the popularized McIntosh is what I am most familiar with, due to all the candles and the fact that I grew up in a McIntosh apple loving home. Yesterday I kept finding myself leaning in to smell the Cortlands. This morning when I went downstairs to make the coffee, their scent greeted me first thing. No doubt my nose will be in them all day again. I may forbid everyone from eating them just so I can keep enjoying their delicious scent.
It's a very busy season around here, one that is full of unpacking and trying to find a home for everything. Many trips to Home Depot and Target have been made. Shuffling the mess from one room to another is commonplace. In the midst of all this settling in, the kids are needing us. And wanting things that seem so absolutely ridiculous right now. Things like learning how to play Monopoly or cribbage, painting fingernails, making cards out of all the craft supplies, and creating a canopy bed. Like we have time for that!
It sounds silly, but those apples taught me a little lesson today. They are a sweet, simple pleasure I am enjoying in this literal and figurative season I am in. And how important to enjoy it! Today my son asked me if I wanted to make a turtle with him out of these cool green foamy things he got for Christmas a few years ago. He had been asking me to do various things with him all afternoon and finally it occurred to me that this was a time to stop everything else... the unpacking, organizing, and cleaning... and savor a sweet moment with him.
It was better than the smell of the Cortlands. I just had to stop and drink it in.
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