Writing in the round; or, random bullets of pie

Come to think of it, pie bullets are not a bad idea. Imagine: in the heat of the summer, in the heart of the city, tempers flare and guns are pulled but instead of bullets, they shoot pie. Or: two warring countries propel pastries at each other and then all the soldiers have to put down their weapons and sit down for a kaffeeklatsch. There are few problems that cannot be improved by pie.

Here's how you know I'm on summer break: if you ask me what I've been doing this week, I'll say, "I baked a pie." That's about it--but goodness it was a great pie, maybe the best pie I've ever baked. But it wasn't easy: usually at this time of year the local farm stands are overflowing with fresh Georgia peaches, but the Georgia peach crop failed miserably so we're seeing a big pit of emptiness where peaches ought to be. But last week I snagged a basket of South Carolina peaches--tiny, hard, not entirely ripe--and let them sit a few days until they were soft enough to put in a pie. It's a pain peeling very small peaches, but I'm willing to put up with the pain if the end result is a fresh peach pie. And then the crust: After all those years of watching my daughter make perfect pie crusts, somehow I got it right. Tender, flaky, golden crust; luscious peachy filling with cinnamon and nutmeg--best pie ever.

Writing about pie makes me think of John McPhee, who allegedly once said, "Everything I write about is round." This was back in the last century, when he was busy writing about oranges and basketball and our whole beautiful world, and when I was busy writing a paper demonstrating the impact of the circular structure in one of McPhee's books, though I do not at this point recall which one. Did he ever write about pie?

My favorite Cormac McCarthy book is sorely lacking in pie but also many other food items, since it's set in a post-apocalyptic world where food sources are rare. The Road is a remarkable book, pithily devastating and beautiful, and the author, who died this week, should be applauded for that accomplishment as well as others, but in my mind he will always be associated with one of the more miserable experiences of my grad-school career, when a professor assigned Blood Meridian but then wimped out of teaching it and required the few  who had read it to defend the book. I've written about this incident previously, but the fact that I can still feel that trauma after 25 years shows the power of petty grad-school political shenanigans.

I look back at that sad past self, ganged-up-on and forced to defend a problematic but beautiful book, and I want to reach back in time and hold out a piece of peach pie. In fact, why not offer the whole pie--everyone would have to move their chairs closer together to get a piece, and then maybe we could men the broken circle and have a real conversation without anger or rancor or bullying.

So whoever you are, whatever you're doing, stop for a few minutes and pull up a chair and let's enjoy the peace of pie.