My eighth-grade teacher asked me once where my love for blueberries comes from, as I inhaled a blueberry bagel smothered in blueberry cream cheese.  

“Is it the tart taste? Or the lovely shade of blue that glistens? Or even that sweet aroma that tickles your nostrils?” She would ask. 

Little did she know it had nothing to do with that, but I just smiled at her and nodded my head. If I explained, she wouldn’t understand. 

Blueberries remind me of that little girl who used to run down her grandparents’ hill at the end of August toward their blueberry bush. She’d hold a big silver bowl in her hand and listen to it clink on her knee with every step taken. She’d fill it up to the tippy top, and then empty it as her sneaky little fingers shoved blueberries in her mouth. By the time she made it back up the hill, she’d have purple-stained fingertips that clutched a bowl that was as light as air. 

After her blueberry adventure, her grandmother would roll up her sleeves and together they’d make luscious blueberry muffins. Whatever was left over would turn into chocolate-coated blueberry bark because it was the simplest thing to make that they wouldn’t have to wait all day for.

That’s what those days were: simple. That little girl didn’t have to worry about screaming landlords, crowds at the grocery store, or filing taxes. The only thing that mattered was her land of blueberries.