We have a couple cherry trees in our backyard that have been let grow through the years, making most of the cherries simply clusters of bright red spots way up in the sky. When we moved here three summers ago the cherries were past harvest time, fallen to the ground or picked off by birds. Last summer we got out a ladder and managed to pick enough cherries for a pie. This summer we did the same – two pies for Father’s Day! and we would have called that success! and done.
But then last Friday night my uncle came over and then a few minutes later Ryan came home from work and the next thing I knew, they were both up on ladders. It turned into a pretty elaborate system, actually. It included a garden hoe, a ratchet strap, and a professional engineer. The dog and my dad came and joined in the adventure, and after a lot of moving the ladder around and working the angles, the Friday night crew came to the end of their reach and left me holding two big bowls of cherries.
As I stood pitting cherries at the kitchen sink on Saturday morning – for a very long time – I began thinking about irony and meaning held by the phrase, “Life is just a bowl of cherries.” In contrast to the bowl in front of me which was full of bright, sweet, summertime delight, I well know life is good at serving up quite the opposite and sarcasm laces through. Yeah, that’s not great….. is usually the context into which this phrase is applied.
Still thinking, I put down the cherry pitter, rinsed my hands and went to google…..I quickly landed on the lyrics of a song from 1931 by Ray Henderson and Lew Brown that seems to be the origin of the phrase.
People are queer, they’re always crowing, scrambling and rushing about
Why don’t they stop someday, address themselves this way?
Why are we here? Where are we going? It’s time that we found out
We’re not here to stay; we’re on a short holidayLife is just a bowl of cherries
Don’t take it serious; it’s too mysterious
You work, you save, you worry so
But you can’t take your dough when you go, go, goSo keep repeating it’s the berries
The strongest oak must fall
The sweet things in life, to you were just loaned
So how can you lose what you’ve never owned?
Life is just a bowl of cherries
So live and laugh at it all…….
Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”
What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?
How do we humans make sense of this life in all its beauty and all its heartbreak? How do we move through the ever passing time?
Yesterday I read a substack post from Micha Boyett in which she opens with this summary: It’s true that the world is beautiful. And it’s also true that the beauty and goodness in the world can dissolve in front of us. Life is unpredictable, and we can still be here to see and bless it.
Thinking about her use of the word bless, I asked Merriam Webster for insight and was given seven options for the transitive verb bless. For more on Transitive Verb, you can read The Trouble with Lie and Lay by Jonathan Rogers.
From Merriam Webster —
- hallow or consecrate by religious rite or word
- to hallow with the sign of the cross
- to invoke divine care for
- PRAISE, GLORIFY
- to speak well of : APPROVE
- archaic : PROTECT, PRESERVE
- ENDOW, FAVOR
Looking for more, I went to Irish teacher and poet John O’Donohue’s book To Bless the Space Between Us and found in his introduction, this: A blessing is not a sentiment or a question; it is a gracious invocation where the human heart pleads with the divine heart.
It is now Wednesday morning and my curiosities have led me deep into the questions of my Saturday morning cherry pitting project. (I did return to that work and now have 17 cups of frozen cherries in the freezer for the bright taste of June to grace our table however they will in this coming year.)
This morning I opened Facebook to find this picture which I posted there years ago. It marks a moment 19 years ago today – Swinging with my boy on vacation in the Sunday morning sunshine.
I held a secret in that moment – one I had only shared with David at that point. I’d taken a home pregnancy test that morning that indicated I was pregnant again. In spite of time and miscarriages, there was reason for new hope this time. I can remember my internal questions as we played in the park that morning. Behind the smiles were my questions – how would I balance the schedule of my teaching job in the upcoming year – I’d just been approved to take on an interesting project and I was eager for what was to come. Also – that kid in my arms: what a delight. I loved summer time with him and this one was just beginning. So many adventures together waited for us.
Life is Just A Bowl of Cherries.
I am still here for it.
