We had ourselves one of those days you live in New England to experience as your own. The air felt cool while the sun shone warm. Leaves flapped from trees in all colors. The sky couldn’t have been bluer. The clouds, not many of them, seemed suspended, fluffy white and cottony, in the sky.
In a way, there’s nothing much to say about a day like this other than it doles out the happy, simply by dint of its many glorious gifts.
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What better thing to do on a day like this than go on a picnic?
That’s exactly what we did, exceedingly fortunate the weather gave so good, because the picnic was pre-planned, a very belated birthday celebration for our twelve year-old, with a few of his pals.
Frost in the spring cut apple picking season short, so we couldn’t pick as originally envisioned, but no matter, a picnic at the gorgeous Quonquont orchard satisfied our apple orchard longing. We bought apples and some cider and some table grapes from the stand and made our way by the pond near the blueberry bushes.
The celebratory mood was enhanced by arriving as a wedding party—staying at the orchard’s main house—was being photographed before heading to ceremony and reception elsewhere. The bride wore white, the bridesmaids wore plum and the flower girls wore lilac; the groom and groomsmen wore kilts. Our fifteen year-old, a former dress lover, grooved on the kilts, and professed his resolve to wear a kilt to his wedding.
Meantime, the twelve year-olds, plus an eight and a ten year-old, teen, and tot traipsed around blueberry bushes and apple orchards and stood by the pond trying to fish out newts (ultimately catching one in a cup, admiring it, then letting it go) and drank cider and laughed and ate bahn mi (what are bahn mi, you ask; well, they are a Vietnamese sandwich, featuring quick pickled cucumbers, quick pickled daikon, quick pickled carrots and thinly sliced grilled beef and in our case, also grilled tofu in baguette).
Lucien, our resident chef-in-training, made the quick pickles, and prepared the beef and tofu for the grill. The dear papa grilled; the dear mama got the bread. Lucien’s creations were delicious, but the best part of the meal? How easy the process was: early morning shop with mama, twelve year-old and toddler, capable execution of the food, everyone’s enjoyment. Lucien even made the perfect amount of each item.
When cooking, Lucien—avid reader of recipes (books, blogs, magazines, the NYT food section), avid Food Network viewer—rarely consents to using a specific recipe. Often, this works out okay, even brilliantly. Often enough to make his parents’ frustrations rise, though, it’s not the easiest to live with way to have him function in the kitchen, and tussles ensue, over things like quantity or ingredient combinations. We’re going to play out so much with this guy in the kitchen, the balance of passion and responsibility (he loves to cook; he squirms out of clean-up all too often), the balance of what he wants versus awareness of others’ needs, his ability (and ours) to negotiate freedom and playing by the rules.
On the way home, chocolate bars were shared—sea salt and caramel, hazelnut praline, dark chocolate (and more laughter). If one word applied to the gathering, it was likely, buoyant. Such gladness the five friends now at four schools had to bask in the sunshine together.
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Twelve, in my experience, isn’t always like this. Twelve’s a gateway year, door jarred open toward the trials and triumphs and traumas adolescence can provide, but not entirely necessarily “there” yet. Indeed, some of the tweenagery teenagery stuff hasn’t really kicked in (but plenty, plenty—as I reflected on the blog last week, it’s tough, twelve).
The fact that twelve’s terrain isn’t always so smooth and expansive as our apple orchard sojourn made the moment that much more sweet. Like the warm sun and the crunchy, juicy apples, we knew to savor everything about this moment. And savor it we did.
