After months of pandemic-focus on things that are most necessary, it felt good to pare down even more. One pants, one shirt, one jacket, one hat, one book, just enough food, a stove, a sleeping bag.
Because the less we have, the farther we go and the more we notice. There’s a spontaneous swim at 8,500 feet. Morning oatmeal above timberline. Explosions of glacier lily and paintbrush. Wild windy nights, yellow moon illuminating pink heather. Elk tracks criss-crossing the snowpack.
The wonders that happen when we remember to pack light. (Especially when it comes to writing.)
The remaining blackberries are raisinlike. Shriveled. Birds have picked over them, leaving them to winter’s dormant dream. * And this is how it always seems to go for blackberries. I’ve got to assume they are ok with it. They likely don’t yearn to be plucked and devoured in the warm sun, shared in pies, or sprinkled on your late night bowl of ice cream. * But you. You human. You do not do as well when your own fruit dies on the vine. When what you so desperately desire to share shivers away, unheard, unseen, unharvested. Unoffered. * I walk past this patch of berries every day, all year long. They remind me so much of our human urge to create. There’s that initial germination of an idea. Then the focused sun of our attention ripens it til it glistens with juicy fullness. The moment that stirs us to offer. To extend our hand. To raise our voice. To hit “send.” Then that sweet instant in which it is consumed. * Then, there are the other times. I know these well. The times when I’ve held that nearly ripe fruit so close to my heart and not let it go. When I haven’t extended my own berries to one who might be hungry. When I waited… til I was clearer, better, stronger–different. The moment of offering passes by. And to hold onto what are now wizened, wrinkled berries just seems overprotective and sad. So I drop them and pretend they were no big deal anyway. They sink back into the earth. * Every single one of these dried-up berries I’m looking at today was such an offering that no human, bird nor bear accepted. And that is fine. * But what about your fruit? * My wish for you is that the moment you sense its ripening—the moment the sun is high and the message is full—you breathe in courage. And breathe in awareness that offering it to someone is the PURPOSE of your fruit. THIS is the reason you imagined the fruit in the first place. To nourish or, maybe, delight others. * * May you let it be easier.
May you reach out your hand and say, “Here’s a berry. Please take it if you like.”
