I remember her best for her love of Georgia peaches. It has to sound like a cliche, but then again, everything about her was like a cliche. She was everybody’s darling, the belle of the ball, and the secret dream of every boy in town. That being said, there is so much more to the story, and like all of the best stories, the really important details have to remain hidden, because they are still too fresh, just like the ripe peach that’s only that way for a very short time.
I had a secret dream where she would be sitting in a small room next to a cupboard, canning all of the season’s peaches before the winter. The dream always got strange at this point, because instead of staying in the cupboard, we always end up sitting in a restaurant in a hotel. This was one of those extravagantly quaint luxury hotels that Georgia has always been known for. Somehow, they always seem to mix quiet charm with excess in everything, and it’s a perfect balance. In the dream, she is balancing a spoonful of peach cobbler, and she is about to tell me something very important.
In the dream, it always seems much longer than it really is, but she says things about how no one ever really understood her. She was only allowed outside for half the year, and the other half she was kept hidden so no one could find her. I always wake up from the dream with a sense that someone is playing an intricate trick on me. Because I start to remember how she was always sick during the winter, all winter long, and would only start to get better when spring started to come around again. And in Georgia, spring takes its time, like everything else. In Georgia, peaches are more than just a fruit. In Georgia, people sometimes turn into trees, like in all the best myths of Ovid, except our local versions are always fresher.
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