Mulberries & Bicycles

Both Rob and I have a complicated relationship with mulberries. You might even say a sort of a love-hate relationship.

There are quite a few mulberry trees in this area. Most of them are black; some are white. White mulberries are not actually white, but have a mauve cast to them and purplish stippling. When it comes to flavour, they have less character than the black mulberries, which are a deep, nearly black, purple. They stain a dark purplish blue and they stain readily. They are sweet, juicy and full of vitamin C. They can be a bit insipid but it is easy to eat a lot of them. Perhaps I should say it is easy for ME to eat a lot of them. *Normal* people, like Rob, get tired of eating mulberries after about five minutes. (By normal, I mean not completely obsessed with food.)
Unfortunately for him, he has very long arms, which means that he is the very best person to pick mulberries with, because he can reach the high branches, loaded with fat, luscious fruits, and pull them low enough for me to pick the berries off. So when he is ready to go, I am still clamoring for more and begging him to reach "that branch, up there, with the really big ones on it!"

One day in June of 2005, Rob and I rode our new bicycles across town and stopped at a couple of mulberry trees where we stood picking, talking and eating. Rob likes to say that we "went innocently 'round the mulberry bush" and when we came around the other side, Rob's new Brodie bicycle had been stolen. Mine was still lying where I left it. (I am about five feet tall; only a dwarf would steal my bike.)

This particular bike eventually came back to Rob, or rather some parts of it did... he had moved on by then and got another bicycle, which was also stolen, but that is another story.

Anyway, I believe that this incident has permanently poisoned Rob's relationship to foraged fruit. For a couple of years after the "mulberry bush" incident, even the word "mulberry" would elicit a visible wince and he still gets an anxious, furtive look in his eye if I suggest that we stop at a mulberry tree. The painful loss of his much loved bicycle will forever be inextricably linked to free fruit, to sweet, juicy little mulberries.

I still have my little DeVinci bike and I still stop at mulberry trees whenever I ride anywhere in June. But I usually do this by myself. (In fact, I suspect that Rob will actually detour in order to avoid passing certain mulberry trees. But even if this is so, who could blame him?)

Today, I stopped at a nearby tree and ate as many mulberries as I could reach. Many more of them were squashed under my feet as I picked; the ripe ones fall and cover the ground where they form a blue-black mash. The fruits are very soft.
I had been at home for more than an hour today when I found an intact mulberry on the washroom floor; I believe it must have stowed away in my hair. I didn't notice it fall. Last Saturday I found a whole, perfect, white mulberry on the driver's seat of my car. How did it get there? I think it must have tucked itself away in a shirt cuff, or perhaps in my hair, while I picked, then arranged itself on my seat when I wasn't looking.
I am starting to think the mulberries have something to tell me, about secrecy or trust; that they have a message for me and are trying to convey it. Perhaps if I keep on picking and eating, it will eventually come clear.