As a lot of you know, my birthday is on Halloween. So in my mind, fall activities, festivities, and feasts are often tied to my birthday. My cute mom, knowing that I didn’t particularly like the scariness of Halloween but knowing that I did like the attention of a birthday, did her very best to make it a special day for me while still worrying about Halloween costumes for her 9 other children. (Bless her heart!)
One year – and maybe more – we did a fall type festival for my birthday party. Complete with face painting and a hallway spook alley and (super fake) palm reading and bobbing for apples.
Let’s talk about that last one for a minute, shall we? Bobbing for Apples: Put a bunch of apples in a bucket of water and then put your face in the bucket and see if you can grab onto an apple with your teeth without using your hands. It’s weird, right?
I learned, thanks to Google, that bobbing for apples dates back SEVERAL hundred years to Roman and Celtic festivities celebrating Pomona, the Goddess of Fruit and Orchards. The Romans are the ones who brought apple trees to Britain, and the apple, because of its connection to fertility, played a really important role in these celebrations.
As part of the festivities, apples were used in fortune-telling games like (yep!) bobbing for apples. The game was believed to predict romantic outcomes, with apples representing potential “suitors.”
Intrigued?
According to Michele Warmund, “each of the floating apples represented a potential husband. If it only took one try for a young woman to successfully bite into an apple, it meant that she was destined to be joined in matrimony with her desired mate. However, if it took her two attempts to retrieve an apple, it meant that her love interest would court her, but their relationship would eventually be ill-fated. Sadly, if it took three or more tries to snag an apple, their marriage was not meant to be.”
(Which, due to my uncoordination, finally explains why I didn’t get married for a long, long, long time.)
That fortune-telling version of the game would have made the 70s game of bobbing for apples with a bunch of greasy faced pre-teens a little more palatable, I guess.
But all those germs and some ill-fated love aside, I haven’t yet even mentioned the most interesting facet of bobbing for apples!
The fact that Apples Float.
Why?? How?? Glad you asked. Aside from the apple’s density, Kabita Sharma tells us 2 reasons:
- Air pockets: Apples contain little air pockets inside of them that make them secretly strong and buoyant. In fact, 25% of an apple’s volume is air. So, no matter how hard you attempt to sink them, they will come to the surface and begin to float.
- Waxy coating: The skin of apples is coated with wax. This coating keeps the apples fresh and prevents them from drying out. This coating also increases the apple’s water resistance, allowing it to float on top of the water.
Air pockets to make them strong.
A thick coating to make them resistant.
Like Apples, we, even on our worst day, can develop more strength from within (air pockets!) and harness the ability to handle pressure from without (thick coating!).
How?
3 ways:
1. Acknowledge what’s working, even when it feels like nothing is.
Strength doesn’t always look like progress – it often looks like persistence.
2. Recognize that resilience isn’t about being untouchable; it’s about being adaptable.
Strength comes from being flexible enough to adjust when things don’t go as planned.
3. Choose to engage with the challenges instead of resisting them.
Resilience is about knowing when to absorb pressure and when to let things slide off.
Yes, A is for Apple.
And also:
A is for Acknowledge.
A is for Adapt.
A is for Adjust.
A is for Absorb.
I can’t wait to hear about how you’re doing all of it. And if you need help, I would love love love to assist you. (No buckets of water needed.)
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
PS If you liked this post – or any others, I’d love you to pass it on to a friend. They can subscribe here if they’re interested!
