Berry Picking.

I went berry picking tonight.

Tromping around in the fading light, I was taught a life lesson. Thoreau said, “Look deep, deep into nature and you will understand everything.” I wasn’t really looking, but I was provided with a lesson anyway.

Black berries are my favorite. Their pockets of tart and sweet exploding on the roof of your mouth, their seeds getting lodged into the crevices of your teeth. I now know that they are not expensive simply due to their delicious factor, but because procuring them is nearly impossible. They are booby-trapped. I'm not kidding you. The scrapes on my hands and forearms and snags in my clothes will prove it. I feel like I’m being really careful, moving gingerly, missing the thorny buggers to pinch the purple jewel when suddenly, as if from no where, I’m nabbed. And I spend the next five minutes untangling my leg, foot and back from the stinking things.

The first time I went picking a few weeks ago I wore a skirt, tank top and sandals. Big mistake. I wised up and this time donned a sweatshirt, jeans and sneakers this time. And it helped, a little. It was still a fight though.

Tonight I had the great idea of climbing up a steep, poison oak laced hill to approach the bushes from another angle. Will I ever learn? After several minutes of careful navigation, I managed about five berries. Spying a few up a bit higher I took some unsteady steps, and reaching out over the spiny sea I managed to spill the berries I had so painstakingly just retrieved. I decided that this may not be the best way to go about getting what I wanted.

My fingers grew steadily darker as my tactics steadily improved. I discovered that I could use the fibrous branches to keep my balance or pull them toward me. Setting my fingers carefully between the spikes, I was able to efficiently control the wiley branch to some degree. At least their attacks were more predictable this way. I also discovered that if I stepped on top of the branches, they stuck to eachother and pulled their neighbors down, instead of tangling with me.

I just had to learn to work with the bush, to use it to my advantage.

And so after all that, the lesson is this: the best things in life are the hardest to get. And you have to learn how to use the thorny parts to help you take hold of the sweetness trapped beneath the thicket.