Love Note 🍎

I got an unexpected love note from Elly in the mail, funny because I’ve been writing about her and sharing old pictures. It surprised me but it filled me with goodness. Apples and apple blossoms have really strong personal symbolism for me. Every house I lived in growing up had an apple tree, and the same is true for my mother. When my Dutch immigrant family moved to Canada after the war they worked on farms, eventually becoming apple farmers, some of my second cousins are still running orchards. My grandfather shows up at my house every fall with a literal bushel of apples. He claims them from the family farm and delivers them to his grandchildren. He calls it our birthright. And every fall I knock on all of my neighbours doors delivering armfuls of those sweet honey crisp apples (of course the best kind) to share this abundance, because a bushel is big and I worry they’ll go bad before I eat them all. Everyone loves apple season on my street.

Apple blossoms are one of the first signs that spring is really here, my whole life that tree in our backyard burst with buds, blossoming with petals almost pink and white at the same time. When they fall like confetti everything feels magical. My mother was depressed every February when I was growing up, the anniversary of her teenaged sister dying tragically in her arms. Things would feel dire. But then the apple tree would start to show signs of life and so would she. Cyclical miracles that took hold inside of me. Every Winter I want to die, and every Spring I stand under my Mothers’ apple tree so glad I didn’t. I have a branch of apple blossoms tattooed on my forearm. Strategically placed over the spot on my wrist where I used to self harm. A reminder that spring always comes, no matter how long the winter. (Elly drew the art for that too.)