Let’s see here, let’s see. Big old pile of oro blanco. Yeah, obsessed, and you should be too. I can’t even taste a commoner’s grapefruit anymore. Bought some Meyer lemons which are sort of comparable to a hachiya persimmon. Eat when soft? I don’t know. Anyway, yup, still citrus season. Yawn. But we’re seeing some cracks in the belltower, some flies in the old ointment. Strawberries, yes strawberries. The tiny heralds of something better to come. For me, much more than that. Yes, I’m a deep motherfucker. Even the common strawberry gives me pause and cause for reflection.

At one of the more depressing times in my life, I turned to the strawberry for salvation. Let’s set the scene first. Jamaica Plain, MA, a nice suburb in Boston. 2012. A little two story townhouse on Rosemary Street. My girlfriend of seven years having recently moved out. Winter around the corner, ready to sweep in and blanket everything in white, except for my heart which was shattered, bleeding black.

Over the years I had built her several raised garden beds in the front yard. Six, in total, taking up almost the entire space. She was unhappy and tending to the garden in the warm months gave her joy which in turn gave me joy and some relief at not having to hear her complain about being so unhappy all the time. The garden became a magnificent thing in her hands. Flowers, vegetables. A marvel. We were the only ones on the block with this sort of production going on. It looked amazing, exciting, mad. Trellises for peas and beans, a big net for cucumbers and melons. We had horseradish, peppers, lots of tomatoes, radishes, fresh lettuce ready for the kitchen knife everyday.

And inside the house, my own secret garden in the spare room where I grew pot, but that’s another story for another time. Let’s get back to my solitude.

It’s sort of amazing how ideas can pop into our heads and call us to action. Around the end of September I ordered 25 strawberry plants from a farm in Maine. These were everbearing strawberries, meaning they gave fruit all year round.

One night I came home from my terrible GM job in Dorchester and there they were, waiting for me on the front steps in a small cardboard box. Inside, 25 little twigs. The instructions told me to bury them an inch down diagonally and a foot apart. I chose the longest of the garden beds, a 14 footer that turned to make an “L” shape. I pulled the last of the old veggies out, turned the soil a bit to soften it, and planted the twigs.

Afterwards, in a frenzy of self loathing, sadness, and revenge, I tore the old vegetables out from the other beds as the neighbors watched in horror and pity. Everything. No matter if they still bore fruit or not. I ripped the still breathing plants from the roots. Left not one glimpse of green untouched. Made a pile, pulled the large tomato bunches apart with my hands, then, sweating and bubbling, dumped it all in the larger of the two compost bins in the backyard.

A lawn of barren beds. Cold weather beginning to trickle in. Me and my trusty companion, Clyde the dog. Every morning I woke up and looked out at them, the garden fully destroyed, purged of any memory of her former toil. Dramatic, yes. Cathartic too. I walked by them through the yard many times a day to take long strolls with Clyde.

Then, before the first snow I fought off the demons of depression and mustered the wherewithal and energy to visit the farm up the street and buy some manure. I dumped it into my trusty wheelbarrow and blanketed the beds with a spade shovel. On top of all this I used a good amount of fresh, ready to go compost and the dead leaves from the backyard to cover each.

The harsh Boston winter swept in. Yeah, I missed her like crazy. She was a baker. In past winter months the scent of cookies and fresh bread in the oven was a normal thing in the house accompanied by her throaty laugh.

There was also the absence of the slobbering Bruce, the American bulldog. Clyde’s brother. A real presence. A snorting, farting, powerfully insane character. During our split we had divided the doggies just to make it all the more sad. I read somewhere dogs could die of heartbreak.

The new year came and went. More darkness and despair. Then, a glimpse of warm, more snow, more cold, and finally the shoots of the perennials in the front flower gardens struggling to uncoil. The last imprint of her hard work.

And then, on a mild April morning I snuck a glimpse under the leaves in the L shaped bed and found a small bud fighting to come up. With care I began to move the half rotten leaves around to allow the little shoots to come up and breathe. All had survived save one. 24 in all. Small curled clenched bright green hands coming up through the rich, black soil.

Another cold snap on the horizon, but the little buggers cared not. They grew and grew in defiance, oblivious to even a couple of last light morning frosts. Tough and ornery. By the end of May small, pale green alien kernels and by June I had more strawberries than I could ever handle. My entire freezer full of them. By the end of that year, they had each sent out three or four or five runners, tendrils of procreation and to my surprise, when they popped up the next year, the bed was so chock full I had to weed out the plants to save the space from total proliferation. Each of my neighbors that summer enjoyed the voluminous bounty. My own freezer full to the brim.

Hearty. Unending. Self multiplying is the strawberry. One plant one summer turning to five, then 25 the next summer, then 125, then 600, and so on. Platoons. Legions. Armies. Full world takeovers. A lone strawberry fallen from the bed and mushed under the treads continues, spreads. Truly a wonder, this small, red, heart shaped orb of flavor. Bright and sweet but also acidic. Good ones great and bad ones terrible, almost inedible. A fruit able to conjure old memories, winch them up from the depths. My grandmother’s strawberry shortcake with the frozen strawberries in syrup, Cool Whip, and the Price Chopper sponges to soak it all up. Of course, the rarest of treats in the midst of Northeastern humid summers, her best dessert, perfectly ripe fresh strawberries swimming in condensed milk with sugar sprinkled on top.