one blueberry

I have always loved blueberries. Blueberry jam on toast, blueberry cheesecake, blueberry-flavored pancakes, it's just wonderful. But for the longest time I did not know how fresh blueberries looked like. It was like I've always seen them in bottles on supermarket shelves. Then I went to Baguio and found blueberries sold in little buckets, which I promptly bought. I guess I was imagining it was like comparing grapes and raisins, with raisins being the counterpart of the blueberry jam.

So there I sat in Burnham Park, watching the boats go by with their load of sweating, straining inexperienced rowers, took a deep breath, and ate my first fresh blueberry. I was sorely disappointed. It was... lacking in character. It was like eating aratiles. I had to spit out the skins. I tried it for two more days, and decided that they weren't really that great. They easily got spoiled, and when they were already squishy they tasted awful.

I came down from Baguio with six bottles of blueberry preserves that I ate by the spoonful for dessert. I also had pneumonia, perhaps from sitting on the bench in my spaghetti straps for several days, hoping to capture the essence of fresh blueberries.