Honey on a Plane

In the papers today was an article about several gatorade bottles filled with honey found in a man's suitcase that caused an uproar at an airport. The quote that really got me was the Sheriff's reaction "Why in this day and age would someone take a chance carrying honey in Gatorade bottles?"

Now, I happen to know WHY in this day and age someone would carry honey in Gatorade bottles. Because when you find someone who can give you real honey, honey that has not long been separated from its bees, you don't ask questions, you take it in whatever vessel it comes, and you hang on to it. I can almost guarantee that if he were allowed to take more than an eyedropper of liquid on the plane, he would have put those bottles in his carry on. If you've ever had real, fresh honey, you know exactly what I'm talking about. There is really nothing like it, the rich golden color, the pure, sweet, flowery taste that coats and soothes your entire body as it goes down.

Through the years, my grandmother in Europe has always sent chocolates, candies, cotton undershirts, and cards for our birthdays or Christmas, but now she knows better. Now she knows any time someone is coming back to New York from Vacation, to send them here with jars of honey for me. My love affair with real honey began when I was 15. My Nona Lina had a neighbor who kept bees. We first tasted it in her kitchen with little spoons, dunking them into the wide mouthed jar and trying to get as much of the golden honey onto the spoon as possible. We pulled out spoons out as it glistened in the sunlight that beamed through the small windows of her tiny apartment. It was such a different flavor, distinct, but delicate, untainted. I felt a camaraderie to the bees. Those little critters that I so furiously dreaded, who would sneak into my soda can at family picnics or make hives under our deck. They were now maestros of the comb, bringing pure happiness in thick, golden streams.

That summer, before the 9/11 tragedy, before Osama bin Laden, before the man on the plane with a bomb in his shoe, that summer when I turned 15, where I sat outside my uncle's house late at night, in the cool Adriatic air, and spoke to the stars. We packed up our bags and put the unmarked jars of honey in our backpacks and carried them on to the plane. I remember checking on the jars all throughout the flight. Making sure they were secure, unharmed.

I have some right now, sitting on my counter top, in an unlabeled jar. In its previous life, the jar was probably home to a plump stash of pickles or perhaps even roast red peppers in olive oil. Now, it sits in a bowl (those jars can get sticky) and every night I take a little honey, one spoon for my tea, and one for my tummy.