I look at pears very differently from St. Augustine, who – in his youth – stole pears from a tree near his parents’ vineyard. Years later, racked with guilt, he wrote in his Confessions, “But since my pleasure was not in those pears, it was in the offence itself, ….”
Bliss for me is wiping ripe pear juice off my chin and watching the morning sunshine light up my kitchen. The aroma takes me back to my childhood, where I – being too small to shake the branches – foraged among the fallen pears for those uninvaded by wasps and bees. Sitting among the leaves, my knees caked with dirt, I would hold my treasures up to my nose and inhale. Then with a dollop of spit, I wiped the tender pear skin on my T-shirt. The first bite, sheer bliss.
Not a guilty pleasure at all.
© 2014 C. Bertelsen