This week marks the last week of the school year for us to give away locally grown apples. Kingsbury’s Orchard, just down the road on Peach Tree, shut for the season last week, and Lewis Orchard will be closing for the winter at the beginning of next week.
I always find this moment to be a little sad, the last fresh apples of the season. From time to time, I consider extending this program by bringing in non-local fruit in order to encourage our students to keep thinking about healthful snack choices into the winter months. I recall a few years back when we gave away bananas purchased at CostCo on a cold February day. Needless to say, it didn’t go over as well as the apples.
But despite my feelings of melancholia at the season’s end, I believe it teaches our students an important lesson about seasonality and impermanence. These apples are so wonderful because we know that they won’t last forever. We need to enjoy them now, not just because they are sweet and fresh, but precisely because they are a special treat that can only be enjoyed in the fall.
This lesson may contradict our parental instincts to provide for our children the best of everything always. If something is good for our children, shouldn’t they get it all the time? We certainly live in an always-on world, when watermelons can be purchased in January, and entertainment of any sort can be carried around on our iPhones. Yet as we debate how sustainable these practices are, few of us would volunteer to have fewer choices. That is why it is good for our students to learn this simple lesson of seasons. There are times of bounty, and there are times of scarcity.
And so. Thanksgiving is just around the corner, my favorite holiday of all. Please take this moment to appreciate the impermanence of our most special things, and give thanks that we may enjoy them when we can, for so long as we can.
John Huber
Head of School