Wild Strawberries

[Above photo: All 12 accounted for. It could be Barra or S. Uist in the Hebrides, except the house would be smaller and of sod or stone.]

6 July 2025

My memory these days appears as evanescent as the wild strawberries that for two weeks cover our meadow. How can something so sweet and lovely be present for such a short time in our lives? And then, how can our lives, filled as they are with sweetness and sorrow, be so brief?

I hadn’t realized how widespread our wild strawberries were until this year when I was here early enought to witness their blossoms—white with yellow centers—covering the floor of any sunny, grassy open space on the island. 

They evoke for me, in layers, memories of my college years. Erik Erikson showed the Ingemar Bergman film “Wild Strawberries”, among others, in the class he taught. It was entitled “Identity and the Life Cycle”, certainly topical for a group of students about to leave the safety and structure of school for the wider world.

I recall bits of the film, basically an old man travelling to his summer place in coastal Sweden. He picks up a young couple who are hitchhiking and, feeling their vigor and romantic attachment, reflects on a summer from his youth, which includes memories about a frustrated romance with a lovely young woman at that time.

Wild strawberries have that valence for me. Summer, youth, romance, joy and heartbreak. The berries are painstaking to harvest. Either they aren’t quite ripe and you must enjoy eating the attached tiny leaves and stem or you have hit the time exactly correctly and they fall off into your fingers like tiny garnets of intense flavor. All while lying on the ground and smelling the grass and earth.  Sharing that moment with a lover is exquisite.

Fireflies are also in an amazing profusion here; I’ve never seen the like. At dusk, as we drifted back to our cabins, ears ringing and eyes stunned from our modest fireworks display on the beach, we were treated to a much subtler and more magnificent show: the meadow silently pulsing with entire rafts of fireflies. It is a wonder each night. How much mating can they do? Quite a lot and while I envy them their passion, I hope they continue, as I find I love being a voyeur to their courtships. Of course, I’d rather be lighting up myself but that isn’t my fate at the moment. Or, more accurately, I haven’t the motivation to create the opportunity right now.

In addition to the mystery of their synchronous ignition, fireflies are remarkably efficient. The chemical reaction that causes their glow generates no heat, unlike even our most advanced lightbulbs.

The island is in full swing, with 19 Varlands and David and Kirsten bringing 8 friends, including kids. That’s 31 people, including Michael, the caretaker, and myself. Oh, and 12 sheep. All the humans drinking from one surface-fed well.

At Ari’s urging, we set up a gutter and water-collection system (two 50 gallon tanks) at my house for the sheep. After a couple of good rains, both were full. Now that two houses and the barn have metal roofs, I think we could supplement our well amply. The occasional drought or dry spell, combined with many of us using the well, has challenged its capacity in the past. And if sea-rise mixes salt water into the low area where the well is situated, we could likely collect enough roof-water to suit our needs.

Note my inclusion of myself in the future, “we/our”. The sea won’t rise sufficiently in the years remaining to me to ruin the well.  However, it is a challenge to think about the future here without including myself in it.

Chas is facing the same dilemma, although more immediately than am I. Susan has worked tirelessly to accommodate his needs and he appreciates it deeply .  Imagining my world without my brother in it is difficult for me, despite our differences. We’ve known each other for so long and have shared so much fun and hardship earlier in our lives.

Speaking of hardship, the careless cruelty of the recent legislation—and of the entire first 5 ½ months of DT’s reign—is breathtaking. It is astounding to me that our system of government is so vulnerable to a bully with charisma (for some—revulsion for me) who aligns with our most regressive, greedy, and callous impulses. And that he has cowed and twisted the agencies of government, including the Supreme Court and Congress, into unrecognizable positions, while forcing others to lick his boots and pay him tribute.  The detention center in the Everglades resembles nothing so much as a Nazi work- or death-camp.  In a very perverse way, his ascent is quite miraculous.

Ezra Klein’s recent podcast with Kyla Scanlon on “How the Attention Economy is Devouring Gen Z” is fascinating. They think—and I’m paraphrasing here—that the secret of DT’s appeal is that he embodies Twitter algorithms, lives them. He utters an unending sequence of brief dramatic bits causing many to become “addicted” to him like many are to social media on their smartphones. Dopamine hits. A previous staffer said trying to brief DT was like chasing a squirrel around in your back yard, his attention span was so brief.

I’ll march and give money and write postcards and email legislators but also fish for mackerel and socialize with friends and family, be supportive of my daughter and my brother and his wife, paddle my kayak, and bathe in this wonderful bit of Nature in Penobscot Bay.

I watched with wonder as my uncle Fran was true to his love for his daughter, she with rapid-cycling Bipolar Disorder. Lucy was in and out of mental institutions on both coasts, periodically being scraped off the kitchen floor in an apartment where she’d lain for a day or two following an overdose. Her older sister had graduated from Oberlin Phi Beta Kappa and killed herself the following year.   Fran didn’t collapse or withdraw, given these terrible blows. He was a fun-loving and civic-minded man, a founding partner in Seattle’s best liberal law firm, a hiker, and a raconteur, as well as a strong and constant support to Lucy.  He was able to celebrate the good parts of his life.  His has been a good model for me to emulate.