through the brambles

gabrielle kai

If I were to enter my own Summer photo challenge, I would have to photograph some berries. Berries are summer.

When I was a kid, I used to creep into my neighbors berry patch and steal the fruit from the vine. The berries were warm, almost hot from the sunshine and so intoxicating my sisters and I frequently gorged ourselves until our bellies ached. We were, of course, found out by our mother who knew well the tell tale signs of berry juice on kid's clothes. She would chastise us half heartedly and the next day we would be back in the berries. I wonder now if our neighbors permitted us this little indulgence. Mr. and Mrs. Chambers were a kindly old couple. Surely as young children we weren't as stealth as we thought.


When I was eleven, my older sister got her period. I was unnerved by the fact that she had moved onto womanhood and left me standing alone in childhood. In an attempt to gain some respect, I stole away to the berry patch. I crouched low so as not to be detected and crushed a handful of berries into my underwear. I then proceeded to convince Heidi that I too had become a bonefide young adult. When could we start shaving our legs? Soon enough, my ruse was discovered and I was relegated back to kiddom. I grabbed my Barbies and sulked off to lick my wounds.


Mr. Chambers just died last week. It's like a little piece of my childhood is gone. I can still see him in my mind's eye, through the raspberry bramble, hanging clothes on their line, puttering around the yard and listening to Spanish language tapes. He always wore his powder blue leisure pants three inches too short with gym socks and black loafers. He had soft doughy cheeks and a shock of white hair.


I will miss that guy.


Man alive, could he grow berries.

you just can't take me anywhere

My mother used to say that. "I just can't take you kids anywhere." I realized two things yesterday. One, I really have never grown up, and two, she was right.

My sophisticated neighbor Denise took me to lunch at the Four Seasons for my birthday. I arrived before her and I was awestruck with the gardens. I couldn't help myself. I crawled around in the flower beds snapping photos with my iPhone. The gardeners looked on, dumbstruck that a guest would do such a thing. It didn't deter me. I've been called a señora blanca loca before.

We sat on the terrace overlooking the golf course and the bay. I sipped my diet coke in the shade of the yellow and white striped umbrella and hummed a little to myself. Denise was pleased that she could please me.

"Aren't we so lucky?" I asked with eyes closed to the sunshine.

"You mean to be eating lunch here?" Denise responded.

"To live here. To live in this amazing place? I mean look around you. This is paradise."

Denise looked around as if to consider the idea. Obviously she has spent more time in paradise than I have. She is accustomed to the good life.

On the other hand, paradise isn't just sprawling gardens and fancy silverware. It's having a soft place to fall. It's friends that laugh at your jokes. It's pink baby cheeks and family cuddles on a Sunday morning.

I don't think I'll ever get over that fact that I live at the beach. Every time I turn onto the coast highway I loose my breath. I think I will forever be crawling through gardens and yelling for people to come see the starfish in the tide pools. Hopefully, my paradise will always include people, like Denise and my friends and family, who humor me in my childish behavior.

passive aggression

One of my *Amelies is to open the bedroom shutters on a sunny morning. Sugar Daddy is like a vampire, in that he insists on sleeping in total darkness. So the shutters are clamped tight so no street lamp light can leak through. He even covers the little blue light on the TV. I personally find it a little bazaar, but it doesn't bug me too much so every night we sleep in pitch black.

In the morning, after the vampire leaves for work, I love to throw open the shutters and call out to the birds, Cinderella style. And they come. Not because of my angelic voice. No, No. I was not blessed with the gift of song (not that I don't sing anyway). I entice/coerce the birds to come to me with bird seed, sugar water, berries- you name it. I am not above using manipulation and coercion, as seen in my parenting style. Think Cinderella, only smarter.

So the last week or so, I have eagerly opened the shutters only to be met with the annoying sound of yard construction. Don't get me wrong. I think it is wonderful that our neighbors are improving their property- even if it is the absolute dumbest thing to do right now considering the housing market. The problem is, after two years of serious construction noise in our new housing tract, I thought everyone in our neighborhood was pretty much done with their yard.

I can barely hear "my" birds singing over the sound of the brick cutter. It is a screechy sound that goes strait to my nerves and I must admit that I have a burning desire to march over there- through the wet cement- and smack them over the head with a shovel. But I won't, because I am passive aggressive to people I barely know and also, it's against the law.

* An Amelie, according to my family, is something that you secretly love to do. If you have seen the movie Amelie, you know what I am talking about. Some of my Amelies include: pulling radishes from the dirt, opening cans of soda, picking price stickers off new items, running my hands through strands of beads, saying the word mochacho, (I try to work it in whenever possible), kissing my mochacho when he is sleeping and driving along the 101 with the windows down.

I am totally fascinated by the little things other people love to do. What is your Amelie? Leave a comment and check out this blog.