Reading Check-In | Day Eleven | Appreciation of Fine Foreign Essays | Reading Notes
Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz's "Strawberries" can call to mind the fragrance of a girl in the bloom of eighteen. Though she may once have filled you with unease, there is an irreplaceable scent about it. Yet as time passes, the flavor strawberries once had is no longer there. Beginning with a single strawberry, the author leads us through the four seasons of life: spring's hazy innocence and the awakening of all things; summer's surging passion and abundant vitality; then autumn's maturity, before turning toward winter, when all things complete their mission.
The author writes: "In general, anything that has become part of our natural endowment can withstand every kind of change and the test of time." Through the four seasons, many things are changing. Yet year after year, some things seem to persist. We still imagine ourselves to be eighteen, unaware that a long stretch of years has already slipped through our fingers. By the time we wake with a start and realize that everything is already late, we prepare to pick strawberries in the fields, only to discover that their flavor has long since changed. The taste of June is beautiful, of course, but September has its own different fragrance and sweetness.