Strawberry

I’ve made strawberry jam, with my children, with girlfriends, with my soul sisters and by myself. Summer just isn’t summer until I’ve made strawberry jam.

When I was a little girl, we moved to a farm in the country. One of the fields was covered with so many wild strawberries that we named the field ‘The Strawberry Field.’ We would pick berries until our jars were full and our white underwear were covered with red polka dots.

We would smash our strawberries into jam and eat them by the spoonful.

We would always run a jar of berries over to an elderly, bedridden neighbour. He was a WW1 army veteran with a long scar down one side of his face. He would give us nickels and we would run to town to buy penny candy.

I often wonder if the Beatles ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ was written after such a memory. Perhaps/perhaps not.

For me summer is not complete without strawberries. Times that I missed the harvest made me very sad.

“Cause I’m going to Strawberry Fields. Strawberry Fields Forever.” John/Paul