For weeks M and I have been anxiously awaiting the ripening of our cherries. We are both new to the several fruit trees that we inherited when we moved into our current house, so we were not sure when the time was right. Pick them too soon and they are small and sour, but pick them too late and risk zero salvageable fruit thanks to the constant squirrel and bird assaults. A sudden, fierce summer storm blew through and severed most of the healthy cherries from the tree. As often happens in life, nature took care of herself without our intervention. We simply collected the cherries that had fallen to the ground and a few that were left clinging to the tree. This solidified my preferred method of gardening and growing: let nature do her thang as she knows better than I because she’s been doing this for eons. It’s a small but sweet crop.

This not only brought me unbridled delight, it also served as a sorely needed universe lesson. A few weeks ago I wrote about seeing everything through the red lens of cancer. This experience showed me that seeing things in red is not necessarily a bad thing. Red is also vibrant and powerful. Red is summer cherries ripening in the tree. Red are my cheeks as my low energy supply is happily depleted from gardening and supporting life as it blossoms. Red is forever painted on my thigh in hopes of reminding me of not only my strength but the collective strength of womxn, the divine feminine, and humanity in general. Red might just be my color after all.

Kindly,

Maegan