Muscadines
The following essay was heard on public
radio station WLRH in the autumn of 2006. The same event that
triggered its creation occurred again the other day, again on a bike
ride. Consider it a sort of Proustian ode to
Remembrance of Things Past. With
the obvious differences that it is not in the form of an ode and
sounds nothing like Proust.
An annual event occurred the other day, an
event that restored my geographical destiny. I say annual, because
it thankfully happens every year, although the precise date varies.
Now, geographical destiny is not a thing many people consider
significant in their lives. But as for me, there is a period that
spans the months of July and August, as well as parts of June and a
considerable portion of September, when I am absolutely convinced
that, as my soul was winging its way toward earth and its injection
into my new born body, that it was intended to land in Vermont. But
instead some cosmic disturbance, a passing comet or misplaced meteor
perhaps, deflected it so that I landed in Alabama instead. Why
consider my Alabama birth a mistake? Because for the interminable
months of July and August, as well as parts of June and a
considerable portion of September, I am completely and utterly
miserable. Alabama heat and Alabama humidity gang up on a poor,
misplaced soul that should have been born in the Green Mountains, up
in Ben and Jerry Land. Where the weather admits that it should be
getting cooler, and acts accordingly.
But back to the event. I make a daily ride on my bicycle, 12 miles
out along the path at Point Mallard in Decatur, a pretty ride that
takes me through the trees, right beside the Tennessee River. A
perfectly beautiful afternoon ride, dodging the walkers and the
joggers. A beautiful, wonderful ride— except during the months of
July and August, as well as parts of June and a considerable portion
of September. During that purgatory, it takes a veritable act of
will just to get up and face the heat. Sweat and dust and humidity.
Just get it over with.
But the other day, it happened, the event happened. I got on my
bike, and there was something different in the air. Or not in the
air, depending on your perspective. There was a clarity, the world
no longer seen through a glass muggy. There was a hint, a notion,
the barest trace of… coolness. I wondered, was this it? And then on
the trail, there they were. Muscadines, newly fallen, still
untrodden, but for a few. Muscadines, those woodland grapes whose
scent is both strong and yet somehow delicate. Muscadines, made into
wine by some, into jams and jellies by those whose moral compass
lies in another direction. The fragrance of muscadines rose in that
clear, and yes, definitely cool, air.
And my reaction was immediate. I was suddenly back at a county fair
in my youth, the smell of cotton candy and cool nights. Then my nose
was buried deep in the grass of a football field, forcibly inhaling
the pungent smell of grass that’s been churned by an afternoon’s
practice. There was the smell of apples and fresh-squeezed cider.
The smell of hay, and a hayride, and innocence thinking itself
wicked because it was hidden in the dark straw, and then the bonfire
and the songs and the flaming marshmallows. And the raked, damp
leaves in the front yard, and the burning piles of leaves. All these
Proustian odors, these remembrances of things past, were triggered
by synapses that had been tangled together with the synapses that
were triggered by the smell of muscadines in air that carried the
first clear, bittersweet hint of Autumn.
And those memories flooded the soul of one who mistakenly thought he
should have been born in Vermont, but realizes he is at home in
Alabama.
© 2006 Chuck Puckett