Raspberries 'n Cream

“For dessert we had fresh raspberries and cream, 

for we cannot scrimp every day.”

This is the only line I remember from an essay that I read more than two decades ago. 

The topic was losing a job and learning to live with much less money. The lesson was that it is soul destroying to live only in the grey zone of budgets and frugality. The point is that we must have something to look forward to, something to brighten the day, something that brings flavour and colour and satisfaction to our life, if it is to be worth living.

This is good advice as we near the 2-year mark of the Covid era, with its restrictions and strains (in every meaning) and fears: Let us walk carefully through the coming days (or weeks and months), but let us do so not always on tip toe, on edge, in perpetual rejection of all things bright and light. 

Let us occasionally, at least, be bold in our movements and wide in our embrace. Let us put some raspberries and cream on our table — whatever that might mean for you. Look forward to the colour, the texture, the taste, the sheer joy of a simple indulgence. Maybe not every day. But some days, treat yourself to a small luxury that reminds you life is for living, even in these Covid times.

Indulgence, for me, is the bi-monthly expensive art-photo magazine I use in my collage work. I could certainly make do with lesser mags, but it lifts my spirit to work with quality paper and outstanding images. As I leaf through the pages, glance at the words, drink in the photographs, my creative horizon expands. No greyness there. Only bright possibilities. 

Were I eating raspberries and cream, I would lick the bowl clean. Get every last drop of nourishing indulgence. Tomorrow, I'll eat toast. But today, it’s raspberries and cream. 

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Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.

Photo by Pascal Meier on Unsplash