The Morning in the Apple Grove
It was an early spring morning. The hills stretched out, hued a dusky blue, canopied by heavy fog. Murray’s eyes traced the familiar winding lane lengthening into the distance. Then he looked down at the cup of coffee warming his hand.
“There’s pleasure in the pause,” he tells me. “The trick’s that you know what to do with it.”
“Well, what do you do then?” I inquired, somewhat distracted by the task of melting my cookie just right into the steaming tea. Not too soggy or it all falls to the bottom. Longer fingers would be helpful. Not this clumsy cage of childhood. It all seemed easier for adults.
Murray sipped his coffee, taking a big, gulping swig. “You look. What’da ya see, girl?”
I looked up, and the cookie fell. I sighed, reaching for the other. “Apple trees and our front yard,” I ventured.
Murray considered. “Sure. And that is rightly there. Would ya like to know what I see?”
I nodded, eyes trained again on the cookie. This was a delicate procedure.
“I see the before. It’s not day yet. But it ain’t night either. The rooster hasn’t crowed. It’s the quiet before the morning gets going. Ain’t nobody up yet but you and me. We don’t have to do anything yet. And that’s not always the way it is. It’s a pause. I like the pause.”
I didn’t respond right away. I had a mouth full of warm melty vanilla, but I nodded as best I could. He ruffled my hair good-naturedly. “You ain’t gotta worry about it, baby. Not for some time yet. But you in the pause. Don’t waste it. You don’t get it back, less you’re real good at lookin.”
My eyebrows knit together. I was sure he’d just told me something very important. “Oh, don’t worry about nothing. Old Murray just rambling. Get on with ya now. And don’t tell your folks about those cookies.”
He offered me a wrinkled, calloused hand, wiry hairs sticking up off his thumb. I stood, brushing off my skirt.
“You get on out into that day now. Go play. Old Murray will be along.”
The blue hues were gone. Replaced by a bright, sun-drenched day. I took my time walking around the house. Careful not to get my stockings dirty, or mama’d be fit to be tied. I waited outside in the early spring morning. Trying to really look at the green things as they came up out of the earth.
I’ve been trying ever since.
Murray wasn’t along that day. He’d died. Doctors didn’t know what got him. He was found just leaning up against an apple tree. Like he’d decided to take a nap, and I guess he found something in his sleep that made it just too good. So he didn’t wake up.
I didn’t understand until I was much older what Murray meant about the “pause.” I came to see that life’s always ushering you on. A stint in the city taught me that. Full of dreams, big ideas. Everyone is always getting on with something. It’s this urgency. It comes from deep in the gut. And it feels a bit like it hunts you. Movement. Always movement.
One night, I was on the carousel, moving up and down, my fingers clacking away on a project until the little hours of the morning. The soft light broke through the window, outshining my candle. I blinked, then stopped. My body, so accustomed to movement, felt strange in stillness. I suddenly remembered that apple grove and old Murray. Heard his words. “It’s the pause.” His voice came back to me like the years hadn’t gone on. The pause, I thought, eyes widening. I’d forgotten.