My grandma’s basement was filled with preserves. I was too young to see all the work. We were all shooshed outside when the knives were brought out. When the pots began to boil. The sweet scent of nature’s sugar wafted through the open farmhouse windows and curled under our noses, leading us round and round the house like we were cartoon characters being led by the mystique of color and magic. It was only after the sticky aprons were washed, after the jars had cooled, after they were stacked in a row on basement shelves, that I got to touch them. All those fruitful colors. I gently ran my hand across the glassed blend of oranges and reds and yellows. I thought maybe the colors would enter through my fingertips and up my arms, directly into my heart, and all that magic beyond the apron would enter into me.

It did.

Before moving to France, I never made bread, nor jams. But I suppose that’s the beauty of magic — it is patient — there for you when you’re ready. Our fruit trees are ripening. I made my first batch of
Confiture de pêches (peach jam). The kitchen is summer warm, as Grandma Elsie scoots beneath the open windows, magically dancing, beyond my aproned heart.