PUCKER UP

I don't dream much.

On certain nights I cherish because they are both rare and wonderful, before I fall into light, unconscious sleep, I first fall into memories.

Recently, I floated into childhood. I write this now and my eyes are brim with tears at the full, rich memories - those moments lost in childhood when all was joyful contentment and the world had yet to tinge the innocence.

Pucker. Go ahead. Do it. Pucker your lips and make that dry, popping sound puckered lips create.
Sounds of my childhood. From the lips of my Grandmother. 'Grandma Granny' we call her.

Walking quietly down a dirt road in late summer, Dad picks small, burnt orange, shriveled fruit from trees here and there. Sharing ensues and as each person tastes of this fruit that is mysterious to me, I listen and learn. Some taste, groan in displeasure, spit and everyone chuckles. I want in. Granny takes a taste of her piece of the juicy fruit, smiles, and offers it to me. I bite at the fruit, and the opportunity of the knowledge eluding me. Slightly sweet fruit, and a texture in which I don't particularly take delight.

I take a turn finding the right trees, spotting the fruit, and a lesson with a warning is given...pick only the ripe fruit; pick fruit that's not ready and you're sure to have a surprise awaiting you. Pucker.

I learn the word, 'Pucker'. Granny proceeds to define the term with action, puckering and making a dry, popping noise with her nicely lipsticked mouth, tinted an understated color. Somewhere between pink and nude. Soft granny lips that had kissed away tears and said goodbye countless times. Lips that I loved. Lips of coffee, and butterscotch candies, and sweet perfume.

I start tasting the fruit to find one sour so that I can experience 'pucker'. Not long...

My lips draw in, my brain creates a new path and I'm now in that inner circle. I came, I saw, I puckered. They chuckle.

Traveling down the road. Granny, Great Granny, Grandpa, Daddy, Sister, Brother, Mom and Me.
And I'm much the wiser for it.

Why that memory, on that night, God only knows, but the warmth has stuck with me all week.

  “I don't want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise