This place called home has shifted over the decades. Growing up the first several years, home was a Cape Cod-type bungalow, built just after WWII, in a suburb of New York City – commuting distance. The large tract of land behind our home was an old orchard farm. The barn still stood, slowly falling into disrepair. But, the apple trees! Oh, those acres of Granny Smith apple trees were magnificent!

Those trees had, obviously, been tended, pruned, and nurtured. The branches were smooth, easy to climb. The apples were tart/sweet, brilliant, sap green, and always in abundance. I used to climb those trees as the Granny Smiths ripened, perfuming the air with their plump greenness. The pruning created upward, smaller branches where some of the best fruit was.

Sitting among the apples, dangling my legs over smooth branches, crunching baby teeth into sun-warmed flesh that puckered my lips – was there anything better than that those days?