Go Pick Berries

 "Go pick berries."  This is what the voice in my head told me this morning.  For the first time in a week, I set out for my Just 10 walk.   I was searching for inspiration.  I was desperate to find it.   Two blocks later my leg was  hurting and my stamina was questionable.   This walk wasn't going well.   I labored on until half way down the trail, I suddenly turned and headed back.  I'd been told to go pick berries.  Not just any berries but the fruit of the wild Himalaya berries that populate the old quarry site that sits between home and the trail.     Intrigued by this strange directive,   I hurried home to grab a bucket and a piece of old plywood.  Hurrying out the door, I moved quickly so as not to alert my children.  This was to be a solo quest, my quest.   I forgot about my sore leg, my search for inspiration and was totally absorbed by this odd directive, "Go pick berries."  So pick berries, I did.  Who am I to argue?

By the time I returned to the old pit/field, the sun was high in the sky.  Berry bushes growing tall and wild hug the sidewalk on the edge of the field.  Every day lots of people pass by and yet, the berries here were not picked.  Don't the passersby know they are edible?  Compared to today's cultivated berries, these wild ones are less desirable.  I know the difference between Boysenberries, Evergreens, Logan and Marion berries.  I also know that I will not pay $4 for 6 ozs. of these tasty gems.  Berries, wild and free, were meant for me.

Bucket, in hand, I toss down my section of plywood, making it easier to approach the thorny bushes.  I feel like Ruth on the Survival Show, "Man, Woman, Wild."



As I patiently pluck the ripe fruit from its thorny rampart, I remember picking this same variety of wild berries along the road as a child.  I was my daughters age, picking berries to take home and make into jams and cobbler.    I picked the berries. I made the jam.  I made the cobbler. I'd left my own children at home because I didn't want to hear them complain about the thorns or the heat.  They have been more protected than I.   They didn't know you could eat these berries.  How can that be?   Next time, I will need to put on my patient armor and bring them along on this quest.  They'll never find the Holy Grail if I fail to let them seek it.

As my bucket begins to get heavy, I am joined by an older couple with a younger adult son.  The son who may be in his 30's is quite loud.  I hear his "Ouch, Ouch,Ouch," echo across the field.  Within minutes, he announces, "I have don't have the right kind of shoes on.  I've got to go to the store.  I'll be back."  He disappears before any of his party can protest.  The older woman sits on a folding lawn chair under a hat.  This seems to be a big outing for her.  The older man, bucket in hand picks on, quietly.  He does not yell "ouch" every few minutes.  Nor do I.   I judge the escape artist son, rather harshly.  The old woman in me decides he must be allergic to work.  I forget about my own childrens' allergy to the same thing.  They sometimes surprise me and if they don't. . . well, don't I bear some responsibility?  Shouldn't I be introducing them to work such as this? If I pretended we were making our own survival show, I bet I could capture their interest.  The old lady in me with an ancient and raspy voice croaks,  "It shouldn't be necessary.  Did any body do that for you?  You worked because you were afraid of the consequences if you didn't.  Scare them, threaten them.  Make them."

For a while, I think the old lady is right, especially after seeing a grown man make such a speedy exit when actual work began.  Once again, I think negative things about the son who I'm sure lives in the basement of his parent's house surrounded by comic books and a computer.  I'm a nasty, old lady berry picker who thinks the worst about other people.  I decide to toss my attitude on the ground along with the too ripe berries who don't make the cut.  I step on a few of the loser berries just for the childish pleasure of squishing them underneath my tennis shoes.  I, who has just harshly judged these strangers' son, am squishing berries for no good reason.  Negative thoughts spin around me.  I take the tip of them by the tail, whirl it above my head and toss it into the nearby algae-covered pond.  "Let it go," says the voice in my head.  "Go pick berries."  I go back to the work at hand.  Tossing down my trusty board, making my work easier,  I focus on the berries.  I carefully finger the fruit, ever watchful for the sleepy yellow jacket but I find none.

During my hour or so in the field, I discover that I am applying old knowledge in a new world.   I feel pleased with my technique, with the application of what I know of picking berries from thorny, wild bushes.  This task has taken me back in time and yet. . . so much  is different from when I was a child.   Children who don't know you can eat these berries.  Adult children who aren't able to endure long enough to help aging parents.  The complete absence of nature's pollinators.  Is this really the same world, the same planet?  Or have I been abducted by aliens while I slept.  On some distant earth-like planet in a distant galaxy, maybe I'm some giant alien's plaything.  Just like the Twilight Zone episode we saw as children.


 We loved how it frightened us.  Now, so many years later,  I have outgrown my infatuation with fear.  My thoughts return to my task.  Finally, I have enough.  Many berries remain.

Once home, I take a quick shower.  I rinse the berries.  Pieces of wild oats, assorted dried weeds, and windblown dirt rise to the surface.  My children appear, eager to see what I have in the bucket.  They want to taste them.  They are surprised by the berries flavor, their natural sweetness.  Their mother, who has picked many a berry, brought them something new.  Soon, she will take them to the field.  She'll put a new twist on a very ancient task, that of picking wild berries.  They will take a camera and make a mockumentary survival video.  Something old will become new again.