Finding Fruit

for Everett, my chunky apple

I CAME HOME LIKE A STONE AND I FELL HEAVY INTO YOUR ARMS

-Marcus Mumford, "I Will Wait" 

“Finding Fruit” by Caitlin Connolly, purchased on Cyber Monday 2015 after one glance and a strong personal reaction. I couldn’t put a finger on why I needed it; I just knew if it sold out I would regret it. It arrived and the gazing commenced. I deciphered two obvious connections:

1. Grandpa’s Orchard

Several of my lazy, carefree childhood summers were spent barefooted in Farmington, New Mexico, jumping over irrigation ditches, catching lizards, and make believing amongst ladders and magpies. Wide-eyed on a trampoline full of sleeping cousins I reached out for the Milky Way’s chalky smear. Cans of black cherry Shasta from Grandma’s cellar, original Nintendo, Hostess treats, dirt roads. Old Tom Kerby retired shortly after supper; a flannel work shirt sat folded on the edge of his bed anxious to be worn before the rooster’s call. Apples are my heritage.

2. Back Pain

As one who has had back pain since her early 20s I alternate between alarm and cringing when I view her form. Lift with your legs, Calico Queen! Why are you making life harder than it needs to be? Don’t you see the fruit on the tree? Save your back and pick the easy fruit! Finding fruit shouldn’t be so painful.

Archer’s birth was a double-edged sword. On the one hand he was miraculously here and placed in arms toned from being open for years. On the other hand I felt no baby closure. Archer never felt like the end but I didn’t dare ask for more; how many miracles can one soul ask for? A secret prayer lay hidden in my heart, unspoken because it sounded a lot like an ultimatum and I don’t make it a fashion to give ultimatums to the architect of the universe. Heavenly Father, if there is another baby please send it fast before I’m too old to raise it and while RE has time to know it. Also, I’d really like to not do IVF ever again. Of course, I will if you tell me to but I reeealllly don’t want to. I was stuck, unwilling to ask for more children because I was unwilling to throw punches during IVF’s long rounds if the answer was affirmative. Outgrown baby items piled high and toppled as the prayer sat in my Draft folder, never discussed, never Sent.

A week after Cyber Monday and three days after the print arrived I found out I was pregnant. Talk about life imitating art! The painting, already loved, was becoming near and dear: she had just put apple number two in her basket and was focusing on something on the ground with a baby bump under her dress. Apple core. Baltimore. Who’s your friend? Shock and Awe!

I knew it was a girl and I was considering naming her Betty after my dad’s mother. Greg didn’t even attend the ultrasound…that’s how sure he was it was a girl. But it was a boy. Holy smokes. I hadn’t even looked at boy names. Was there a name as stellar as Archer West? A name that sounded literary yet frontier-ish? Smooth while scruffy? In your face with a hint of mystery? Symbolic but not weird? I doubted it.  

It took me four days to figure out his name would be Everett. Now for the middle name. Archer’s middle name came from a hymn; Everett’s would likewise need musical gospel roots. I began reading the hymn book. When I passed a word I didn’t know I looked it up. The search ended abruptly with Hymn 144.  

"Secret Prayer"

There is an hour of peace and rest unmarred by earthly care;

‘Tis when before the Lord I go and kneel in secret prayer.

May my heart be turned to pray, pray in secret day by day,

That this boon to mortals giv’n may unite my soul with heav’n.

BOON (noun): a favor or request. Synonyms: blessing, godsend, bonus, plus, benefit, help, aid, asset, windfall

WINDFALL (noun): an apple or other fruit blown down from a tree or bush by the wind, a piece of unexpected good fortune. Synonyms: jackpot, manna from heaven

BANG-A-RANG! I added an E to make it less noun more manly. Plus I grew up in Boone County, Missouri (named after Daniel Boone). Small nod to my childhood. Everett Boone. Everett Boone Lawson. (Or Vava Boo Lala, as Archer would soon call him.)

Joseph of Egypt, one of my heroes, named two of his sons Ephraim and Manassah in the midst of all the turmoil he lived through. Favoritism and a colorful coat ended abruptly with slavery, temptation, prison, butlers, bakers, and leadership. Years of Egyptian endurance passed before the silver cup series finale of forgiveness and tears aired. Ephraim means "fruitful" and Manassah means “forgetting.” In my own life, after all I had been through, I was given one son to feel fruitful again and a second who caused me to forget I ever battled for babies. How quickly I forgot what 12 years of infertility felt like. I believe the words Christ told Joseph Smith: these things shall be but a moment.

My life has had odd growing seasons and rare harvests but fruit is fruit and apples remain my heritage. Fruit is fruit because it has seeds. My fruit is my seed and from fruit I have learned the Lord has varying ways of bestowing bounty on each of us.

RE was what I wanted when I wanted it. First fruit. Easy fruit.

ARCHER was what I wanted after years of No and Not Yet. Fruit at the tippy top of the tree. Rare fruit. Cherished fruit.

EVERETT was what I wanted without ever asking for it. Perfect, shiny apple that fell out of the sky and landed at my feet. Fruit fortune.

In a grove of poetic justice I stand corrected, or rather, I stoop corrected. I am Calico Queen and my basket is sacred. Finding fruit was holy work; the fruit deserved a holy basket. Straight reeds submitted to a thousand uncomfortable corrections as the Great Artisan wove his designs. It also took a brain, a heart, joints and sinews, logistics, chocolate, a savings account, graph paper, space planning, Dreft, hand-me-downs, and roundtable prayer councils to construct a basket capable of cradling excess fruit.

I am Calico Queen in my sonny yellow dress. My back does hurt but not because I went out of my way to ache; I was aching to pick up Windfall because I’d already plucked Easy and Rare. It was news to me the path of abundance doubled as a path of difficulty. The weather reinforced an uneasy truth: baskets overflow with blessings because of opposing strong winds. Seeking after my lovely things of good report was frequently painful and unexpectedly awkward as the painting suggests, however, the best of times are because of the worst of times.

Cheers to 2016: a year of opposition, a year of plenty, and the year I found the last of my fruit.

BUT LET PATIENCE HAVE HER PERFECT WORK, 

THAT YE MAY BE PERFECT AND ENTIRE,

WANTING NOTHING. 

-James 1:4

Print shown with artist's permission. I love how she paints hands.

Ironically, Everett's worst color is red. He must be a golden delicious!