Apples

The apple orchard, above the farm, is my hiding place when I need to think. Rocco, the boxer, lays at my feet as my therapist.

The panorama of tree-lined rolling hills stand in their grandeur as the wind gently tossed their leaves to dance a final waltz to the earth in the autumn sunlight. I need quiet before my wife, Marigold, and I renew our vows in the barn. The chemistry department staff and close friends will be present for our Fiftieth Anniversary. The party will be loud.

Under the nearest tree I see the remnants of dying orphan fruit in its decay. The whiff of apple vinegar is sweet and foul. Their liqueur is fed on by yellow jackets as it escapes into the earth. The apples make me think of hormones and of my marriage.

Hormones are wicked and I hate them. We eat them, and taste the sweetness, breath them, and inhale the passion, pee them, and pray for two bars on the stick or not, and poop them, and light a vanilla scented candle to rescue our olfaction. They are everywhere toying with our lives like the movie “The Invasion of the Body Snatchers!” These invaders are real and flip the switches of passion, pleasure, emotion, and pain like perfect little Freudian sadomasochists.

“For better or worse,” I say to Rocco.

Hormones are as ancient and devious as the succulent apple in the Garden of Eden. They drive two people to seek pleasure and create life, intentionally or sometimes not. Hormones attract and repel with magical surges like commanding magnets between people. This power is massive and invisible like the pull of the full moon on the ocean scapes of our lives and relationships. Its energy attacks us like an Edgar Allen Poe pendulum slicing our hearts, minds, and passion with its stained blade.

“For richer or poorer,” I say, and Rocco’s ears perk up.

If hormones are the apple then its cousin, pheromones, are the apple seeds. Together they conspire to get you kissed, touched, and laid by your paramour or banished. These sneaky little bastards control our lives like a coin toss between the extremes of intimacy and murder.

Their power can make your mind spin akin to a Whirly Ride at the fair, put you to sleep like you’ve eaten Sleeping Beauty’s poisoned apple, or have the insomnia of the walking dead. One minute your body overheats, and your skins afire, and the next it’s shivering, and you are standing naked in the Alaskan Tundra. The bravest man in the world may have been the literary Prince who kissed Sleeping Beauty. I whisper,

“In sickness or health.” Rocco sits up and cocks his head at me.

Hormones are sneaky, and maybe you laugh, but have you seen one? They are as undetectable as an elephant wearing a green hat sneaking across a billiards table. They march into homes, workplaces, capitals, and maternity wards and create havoc, depression, lust, and anger. Like the pachyderm with the green hat, they travel unseen but leave huge footprints. They are clever and leave the scent of fresh mountain apples or the rotten sourness of apple vinegar. It all depends on the age.

I hate Hormones because they create unpredictable situations.

“Do you want to cuddle?” I ask.

She says, “No, I am burning up!”

I jump up and slide the thermostat setting down.

She demands, “What are you doing? I’m freezing!”

I get excited, “Now, do you want to cuddle?”

“Nooooo!” she yells, and I’m forced out the door in front of her words, “Nothing personal! You’ve got to go to your room tonight!”

The next morning I get her text message,

“I can’t believe you left me all alone last night!”

I know it’s not her. It’s those sneaky little hormone gang bangers that are messing with her body and mind. It’s time we hunted these Red Delicious bastards down and got control of them. Everyone should be able to identify them so we know, day to day, what we are dealing with in our lives before too much damage is done to our relationships. I murmur,

“To love and to cherish.” Rocco rests his head on my thigh.

I miss the luscious esters of tree ripened apples on my breath of years past. But I am snapped back to the present when the flavors permeating my memorial palate turn to vinegar. I spit out,

“Damn it, Adam and Eve, I think I hate apples now!” Yet, out loud, I vow,

“Till death do us part!”

I lifted the arrangement of Marigolds I had cut for her from the hilltop flower garden and made eye contact with my canine counselor.

In agreement, Rocco and I meandered our way down the hill to the gathering that awaited.