A Bowl of Grapes

My grandmother came from Ireland with my mother and uncle in tow in an effort to create a better life for herself and the ensuing generations. I watched her closely as a child and learned from her Irish toughness and faith. Just yesterday I was wrist deep in a meatloaf with meat onions and green peppers squishing between my fingers when I remembered the grapes.

I remembered the many times I saw this weary, questing woman bent over a bowl of green grapes like a miser staring into a cask filled with coins and faceted gems. As she slowly popped them into her mouth, I realized that that those grapes meant more than just a pleasant snack. For Nellie O’Sullivan these grapes were a physical manifestation of many things that were dear to her. They seemed to be physical proof of a better life – an extravagance – that was not readily available in rural Ireland. The grapes were clusters of validation for a move across the Atlantic to a land of abundance and opportunity. They were a manifestation of arrival and thriving.

Philip Gibbs of the New York Time once quipped that, ” there is poetry in a pork chop to a hungry man.” That about captures the meaning of my grandmother’s bowl of table grapes.

This memory led me to a question about myself and the people in my life. What are my dear one’s bowl of grapes… where do they get the physical representation of their achievements and dreams. For a woman I know it’s a closet full of marathon tee shirts and race jackets. For one man that I know it is a collection of stringed instruments. I wondered what was in my own jewel box, what bowl of fruit did I stare into with a sense of satisfaction.

Well, I stare into a bowl of words. These are my gems and as George Herbert observed, “good words are worth much and cost little.” I find myself rolling words between my fingers, placing them in arrangements and devouring them with gusto. I hope you enjoy a little word snack as much as I do and I apologize for not serving you more of them. I am back in the kitchen now and stringing the jewels together.

Let’s eat.