Applebirth

Making applesauce

The apples Papa collected in the fall have sat unheeded in the closet for months. Most of them are still good" the closet is cold, but I'll have to do something with them.

I pull them out to the kitchen, bag by bag, and sort through them. A bucket goes aside for rotten ones, a bowl aside for the especially good ones that will turn into pie, and the rest into big buckets for applesauce.

Papa comes down and reads to me as I work. We're on our way through “The Discovery of the Unconscious” and we've just hit the chapter on abnormal sexuality. Apples get washed to tales of Marquis de Sade, and cut to necrophilia, pedophilia, bestiality, and last in the list - *gasp* -  homosexuality.

The apples end up on the wood stove in big metal pots to cook down. One gets cinnamon and sugar, the larger stays plain.

When they've boiled down I come back to them, tasting and listening for what they need. A little cayenne and white vinegar in the cinnamon and I'm horrified to find that the abnormal sexuality has made it's way into the sauce.

What now? There's no getting it out. I'm not going to distill two pots of applesauce. As with any spicing you can only add, never subtract. What will make abnormal sexuality taste better?

Normal sexuality, I decide: love, fertility and birth. When the woman who took my virginity later got pregnant with her husband, I started having pregnancy dreams. Being pregnant, being a father, so vivid I would wonder if I really was a father when I awoke. Those go into the applesauce.

The smell of freshly cut grass, the virility of rich black dirt under bare feet. The slant of sun in a garden. The phallic nature of a squash

- all into the applesauce.

Making love with the love of my life, our sweat and sweetness mingling in the basement of her childhood home. Stockings kept on in a friend's loft in the sun. Moving like the sea with a forbidden paramour. Laughing in a tree house with people walking unknowing underneath. Nipping at necks to leave marks in the dark

- into the applesauce.

Kisses shared in the sun and at night" hips rocking, against mine in the woods, goodbye kisses given in the morning and long goodbyes with tears. Kisses given stretched out in the bed, wet in the rain, hidden, public, shy, proud: joy, love, sadness" all as they link to sex.

All go into the applesauce.

Babies, this one bubbling over a mother's arm in a grocery store. This one in my arms, little hands in my water, exploring the nature of fluid dynamics. This one crawling through the house pulling down what she can reach. This one on the floor fascinated with a spoon, everyone of them building that bubbling in my heart, that longing for my own.

- into the applesauce.

Then I taste again. It's good. An hour spent remembering, has balanced it out nicely. It's a little horned, but it can't be helped. An apple has a little of that anyway, sun sweet on the tongue.

The seeds make their way into the compost. The cores get recycled into stock. The applesauce gets canned without incident, although two bottles don't seal and have to be used right away.

When it comes time to label them the names come easily " Abnormal cinnamon

and Applebirth.