Transition
The only constant is change. I merely wish less change were toward the commoditization of childhood memories.
My family went on our yearly apple picking at Keepsake Farms, presently leased to people who have renamed it Barton Orchard. Along with the rechristening came numerous changes that I felt to be just as unnecessary. No longer could we drive to the section of the orchard containing our preferred variety apples, instead having to park a quarter mile away and walk. Going to the section, this would be the most minor of inconveniences -- a family jaunt through an orchard, but it proves far more vexing when loaded down with bushels of apples. I believe this tact was intended to retard theft -- employees were thorough as German border guards in searching my mother's car when we left -- but considering the near doubling of the cost of a bushel, I don't believe we were the thieves. However, as Barton Orchards allowed our favorite apple trees to die and forced us to trounce around through heaps of bear droppings in fruitless search of them, there is little I would want to expend the effort to steal.
We returned to the adjoining farmer's market where we customarily have freshly made doughnuts and other goodies. Evidently, it is not profitable to make fresh doughnut, as we got cold, greasy rings that cost more than the fresh. Even the fun activities for kids had a price tag attached, from a dollar to stand inside a nylon pumpkin full of balloons to eight to walk through a shallow cornfield maze to learn the history of Manhattan (and I think we all know how much kids love learning history in cornfields).
The bright spot of the experience was stumbling upon Emily talking with Kendall and her fiancé. I had not seen Kendall in years except in cyberspace and am glad she is doing well, still teaching at a daycare in Cold Spring and with an engagement ring on her finger that could be brandished against attackers. What interested Emily particularly was that Kendall is presently living in a complex in Croton, about as far from us right now as from the city and therefore a way to greatly lessen her daily school commute. To invert Maslow's phrase, when all your problems are nails, you start looking for a hammer.
Everything seems to be changing when even a quaint farmers market/orchard focuses exclusively on the bottom-line; not everything need be corporate to be good. Childhood memories most of all.
Perhaps I cling to these vestiges of childhood because I am increasingly hearkened to actual adulthood. Even my friends are changing, cloistering themselves in relationships and careers and I hate it. I hate the details of survival eclipsing the reason to bother surviving. I miss spontaneous, arbitrary fun.
Is this all inevitable? Must we grow distant from what we once held dear to grow up?
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