It is the week before Christmas. It is about 25 degrees outside.
I’m in my sun porch in Saco trying to stay warm and watching the birds in our yard as they fight over snow-covered bird feeders. As I spread a pancake with the homemade blueberry jam that was a present from my cousin last fall, I am suddenly taken back to the days in July when my parents and I would spend two weeks on Chebeague Island.
Every summer, we stayed in the little cottage that my grandfather, a carpenter, originally built long ago as a workshop. Eventually he turned it into a very rustic cottage that became known to the family as the Camp, or Gramp’s Camp. In addition to Nana and Gramp, members of our family, aunts, uncles and cousins, vacationed there each summer, enjoying what now seems like a return to a simpler time. Mainly we swam, walked all over the island, as we had no car, and visited with the many aunts, uncles and cousins who either lived on the island or returned there each summer as we did. It seemed as if we were related to the entire island in one way or another.
When I was a little girl, my mother would pick a nice day and we would walk halfway across the island to the blueberry field. We carried with us tin cans that at some time in the past had been fitted out with wire handles and were used to gather blueberries. On the way she told me stories of who lived in what house and things she did as a girl on the island. At the blueberry field we talked, picked blueberries, talked, ate blueberries, talked and picked some more in the warm July sun for what seemed like hours.
It’s funny, because I don’t remember what we did with those blueberries when we got back to the Camp. What I do remember is the delight of being in the blueberry field and picking them with my mom. As teenagers one of my cousins and I would take the same pilgrimage to pick blueberries on one of what seemed like endless days when she and I explored the shores and roads of the island for those same two summer weeks. Again, we picked blueberries, talked, ate blueberries, talked, picked blueberries and talked some more. As they come back to me now those moments are precious and are frozen in time.
The island holds so many wonderful memories for me. These days I only return to it once in a while to visit the Camp and cousins who spend the summer there. But this morning I took a half-full jar of homemade Chebeague Island jam from the fridge in my kitchen. My husband loves to have Chebeague blueberry jam on almost anything, but particularly on his favorite English muffins. I prefer to savor it on homemade blueberry pancakes. I’m not much of a fan of maple syrup, but a teaspoonful of this blueberry jam, sparingly spread on a pancake, is pure heaven.
Like a lot of things, the blueberry field is not there anymore. Years ago, on my first return to the island after being away for a while, I walked all the way from the Camp to the end of the island before I finally realized that the new fire station is sitting right where my much-loved blueberry field used to be and there would be no blueberry picking for me that day.
Since then, though, I have discovered something very special. As long as there is still a bit more blueberry jam left in the jar, I am secure in the knowledge that with each mouthful I can be taken back to those summer days on Chebeague picking blueberries in the sun.
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