Short Memoir

Strawberry Fields Forever by Lilit Danielyan

I remember the summers at my grandmother’s home in Armenia. Up in the mountains where our village is located, the air smells of freshly cut grass, flower meadows, and cow manure. I am thirteen, and I love this smell. My tatik (grandmother in Armenian) prepares the bed for my first night’s sleep in the guest room: she takes off one layer of wool-staffed blankets after another and moves it onto the next bed where no one is sleeping. When I finally lay down, I hear the metal bed springs responding to my presence. They know I am there, but I am not entirely sure whether this moment is real or not. I dreamt of coming here for years. 

The morning arrives early, and I am awakened by the rooster crawling. After breakfast made of fresh eggs, homemade butter, pastries, and coffee, I check on tatik’s garden downstairs. She grows potatoes, flowers, vegetables, fruits, and berries. I take my shoes off and step into the small patch of strawberry fields, to taste what I knew so well since I was little. Here, in these narrow rows, I can spend a long time looking at the leaves, and caterpillars, but primarily strawberries. I have to be attentive not to miss the ripe ones. The bright red strawberries with a somewhat pinkish hue I will leave for tomorrow. The green ones will ripen in a few days. It is the darker red ones I am after (but not too dark). I notice that birds like my grandmother’s strawberries just as much as I do. 

I was born in Armenia during the war. Tatik told me how my family hid in the shelter when I was just a few days old. It was a cellar outside of her home, and the strawberries were planted right next to it. Now, the garden feels like my shelter. 

I bring a handful of strawberries upstairs and spread them down on the tablecloth. The sunlight coming through the kitchen windows saturates their colors making them even prettier than in the blue morning shade of the garden. My fingers are stained with bright red but I don’t wash them.

Years later, when tatik got very ill, she allowed the neighbor to harvest potatoes she no longer needed. That neighbor also ate the strawberries. Just like the birds, he knew what they were worthy of. During my last summer spent with tatik in 2015, I obsessively photographed her house as if knowing I would no longer be able to return there. Here is a picture of one summer morning in my tatik’s kitchen. Garden roses, picked from my aunt’s garden, leftover cherries bought from the trader, and a plate full of strawberries.

The photo below: Lilit Danileyan. Mo (u)rning in the village. Chambarak, Armenia, 2015