After a bit of a writing dry spell, I wanted to write about making jam today. It’s a subject I’ve visited before (here and here and even once in the Portland Press Herald.) and no doubt will again. So, I pulled up my blog this morning, determined to write and to get back into blogging more regularly. I knew it had been a while since I had written, but I was shocked to see that my last post was at the end of May! That’s more than two months ago! 1/6 of a year!! How can time pass so quickly? (Update: My husband has informed me that my math skills are a bit off, and this is closer to one month than two. I’m not sure whether to feel better or not! lol)

I’ve been thinking about time a lot lately. Perhaps it’s prompted by the arrival of summer, which is always jarring in a teacher’s life, or perhaps it’s where I am in my own life, and where my loved ones are. It’s also been a common theme in books I’ve been reading. Time passing. It’s our one true constant, isn’t it?

I’ve been considering how the nature of time changes–how on some days, time visits you in a leisurely way, curls around you and tucks you into its slow unfolding, and on other days it whips past, barely seen, leaving you breathless in its wake. Most days it falls somewhere in between.

Perhaps that’s why traditions, like jam making, matter so much to me. They’re like small anchors in the tide of time. Or maybe small flags of proclamation. Jam making literally feels like a way to capture time in a bottle, to savor at a future time of your choosing. Ray Bradbury says it best, when writing about dandelion wine in his book of the same name:

“And there, row upon row, with the soft gleam of flowers opened at morning, with the light of this June sun glowing through a faint skin of dust, would stand the dandelion wine. Peer through it at the wintry day – the snow melted to grass, the trees were reinhabitated with bird, leaf, and blossoms like a continent of butterflies breathing on the wind. And peering through, color sky from iron to blue.

Hold summer in your hand, pour summer in a glass, a tiny glass of course, the smallest tingling sip for children; change the season in your veins by raising glass to lip and tilting summer in”
― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

(After reading Bradbury’s writing again, it’s hard to continue writing this piece. What a master he is!)

At any rate, last summer we traveled extensively and I missed strawberry season entirely. This winter I found myself buying jam for the first time in years. I think I bought every flavor except strawberry, and I admit it was fun to have some variety. Still, this year I hoped to make jam again. As we moved further into June, I trawled through the local U-pick farm’s FB posts, eagerly searching for updates. Finally, after days of tantalizing “Soon!” posts and pictures of dangling berries, there it was:

Today’s the day!!! Opening Day for strawberry u-pick season!! 

The post appeared on Monday night. The fields were opening the following morning, which was the last day of school, and also the Tuesday before out-of-town visitors arrived and we hosted a party for 100ish people at our home. Over the following days, no matter how I juggled, there was simply no time for picking and jam-making. Things were starting to look grim on that front.

Once the party (such fun!) was over, visitors remained, and then the fields were closed for heat waves and then rainfall. There were sad commentaries about unfruitful harvests. But fear not, Dear Reader! For on this past Sunday morning, the grey clouds looked blanketing, not threatening. Temperatures were not supposed to rise into heat advisory zone. The local farm’s Facebook page said picking was light to moderate, but they were optimistically opening for the day. I set out for the fields first thing.

Picking strawberries tends to be a layered experience for me, and that morning was no exception. I crouched in my chosen row, avoiding puddles, searching for berries. A veery called repeatedly from nearby shrubs. Two cat birds swooped and dove nearby. As always, I listened to the voices drift over the fields from other pickers. Most people were in small groups or partnerships. I used to pick with my mother-in-law and children, but in recent years, due to distance and scheduling, I’ve been picking alone, steeped in memories.

Berry picking is a treasure hunt. This year it felt especially so, as the berries were smaller and fewer in quantity. Every so often I stumbled upon a patch of glowing red berries, but more often I was brushing aside damp leaves, searching for hidden ones. Sometimes I was rewarded. Sometimes not. But bit by bit, my green cardboard quart baskets filled up. Eventually I was finished picking and I headed home to make jam.

There was no rush. I had nowhere to be. No pending commitments. Just a morning free to pick berries and make jam.

Still, soon enough, I found myself hurrying, thinking about being done and not so much about doing. After months of crazy to-do lists, I’m working really hard to catch myself when I’m not being in the moment, not experiencing and appreciating it as it unfolds. I’m working to switch gears, to lean into the moment at hand, and not think ahead to the next thing, or the next step. So, on this day, I caught myself rushing, and then deliberately slowed down.

Walking out to the back yard to harvest rhubarb, I focused on the damp weight of the encroaching vegetation against my legs. I felt the gentle scrape of the massive leaves against my hands as I parted them and reached low into the plant. Heard the snip of scissors cutting through each ruby stalk and the subsequent tree fall of it timbering over. Back in the house, I focused on the flow of water over my hands as I washed each stalk. The crisp slice of the knife. The gathering pile of chopped pieces on the scarred cutting board. Then the hulling of each strawberry and the soft thunk as it landed atop the growing heap in the large, white bowl. The sticky red coating my fingers. The soft squishy sounds of mashing berries together, and the rush of juices. I savored the grit of sugar against my finger as I swept it across the top of the measuring cup. Watched it spill into the pot. Marveled at how the color transformed and intensified. Heard the steady thump of the spoon as I stirred, and the eventual gentle burble of a rolling boil. The heavy scent perfumed the kitchen.

All these sensations intermingled with reminiscences of previous jam making adventures with my mother in law and my children. Even as I tried to stay in the present, grounding myself in sensory experiences and willfully turning away from the tug of the future, the past slipped in. I welcomed it. Rather than undermining the moment, it enriched it. I lingered in the sweetness of memories of collaborative berry picking and jam-making. As I worked, I smiled, remembering how a couple of years ago, my youngest daughter and I spontaneously began to recite Bruce Degen’s “Jamberry” in the fields as we picked:

One berry, two berry, pick me a Blueberry !
Hatberry, Shoeberry in my Canoeberry;
Under the bridge and over the dam,
Looking for Berries – Berries for Jam !

Finally, at the end of this morning, the jam jars lined the island. Row after row. I cleaned up the kitchen as they cooled, somehow enjoying the wash-up as an extension of the creation. I wiped away streaks of strawberry from the counters and scrubbed sticky remnants of jam from spoons and pots. As I worked, every so often one of the jars emitted a soft sealing clink. One of the best sounds ever!

Later, as the day drew to a close, I stacked the jars of cooled jam in the wooden pantry. I admired the soft glow of berries through the quilted jars, and anticipated savoring their flavor on dark winter days.

To an outside observer, this was a solitary endeavor. One moment in time. I know, though, that it was so much more than that. Picking each berry, washing, cooking, cleaning and bottling filled my morning. But making jam on this particular Sunday also, somehow, transcended time. It united past and present, and fused them together into a glorious, sweet preserve–one I know I will savor as time and the seasons pass.