To Harvest: College Admission Essay Sample

In second grade, I worked in construction. I knew that dewy grass was proof of fairies, and that they needed a spot to rest their wings before shining lawns with water. So I gathered my tools and worked ceaselessly, at every possible chance, to build houses for those laborers of light.

I ripped grass, tore bark, and plucked mushrooms, fashioning tiny furniture for whomever needed it most. Alas, the most coveted decor required flowers, not from my grandmother’s backyard, but from her neighbor’s.

I made a game of the crusade, a dance with security. I would scale the stone partition between their kingdoms, and with sleek grace, snatch Ingrid’s tulips. This technique worked innumerable times, until I finally found myself face to face with Ingrid, a dead flower in my hand, and a severed stem in her garden.

With her harsh German accent, she smashed my interest in the supernatural. How could fairies exist in a world of possession and anger? At the ripe age of seven, I had learned, quite sadly, that the beautiful was not necessarily the communal. I did not have the right to uproot pretty things to make my world daintier.

When I went crying to Mormor, who had her own gripes with the Holsteins, she coupled reprimand with hope. First, she reminded me of the etiquette behind not vandalizing gardens. Then, she shaped my little hands about a dented tin cup, with illegible measurements strewn across the sides, and told me to fill it with raspberries. I thought of the times I had not been permitted to pick them, as their thorns would stab my young skin. I thought of the day that I found one lying somewhere on her dewy grass and squished it with two hostile fingers. Their oblong bodies piqued my curiosity, as I couldn’t understand their function. They would not decorate my fairy houses; they were big, lumpy, hairy, red tongues of worm-vines, not flowers by any means.

Nonetheless, my tin cup and I ventured to the end of her lawn, to the armed fortress of red dots and brown roots. In a blur, we stormed the castle with the ferocity of ravenous ants in a picnic maze. I ducked, swerved, swiped, and soon my cup was full. Perhaps my knee bled. Perhaps I got tired. I recall an ominous, thunder-tinged sky sending me back indoors, where I victoriously marched to Mormor and shared my winnings with her.

Dear God, were they wonderful. If you’ve never had fresh raspberries, I highly suggest them. They taste like moist rebirth.

For years, I anticipated June in my grandmother’s backyard, the thrill of its perpetual treasure hunt. I grew taller and learned new methods of manipulating my body through jagged crannies, always adapting in sight of my prize. For years, I foolishly froze August’s last harvest. Until, years later, the raspberry bush died.

And Ingrid died. And her house died. My grandmother is the last gardener on her street of brick-faced lawn-less duplexes. Her turf is the final, finite bastion of dew-stained grass, tall trees, and begging-to-be-plucked tulips.

But I will not pick her tulips; they want to live, not wilt to the touch of scissors. I will not mourn the crumbling of my oasis; I will tuck its ashes in my pocket, or let its colors stain my lips.

Thus, I’ve stained my lips with cloudberries in Norway, marionberries in Oregon, lingonberries in Sweden, stoneberries in Maine. I coyly steal mulberries at busy street corners, even if I’m running late. I have learned that this wild world is full of fruit, and that beneath the thickest spikes are the sweetest berries. I have learned that fruit is from the same cosmic explosion as human skin and is imperishable as morning dew, and that all fruit begs to be tasted.