Berry season
does every blackberry taste differently?
Someone said to me recently that they’d never eaten the same blackberry twice. Well, of course not - once eaten and all that… But I knew immediately what it was they meant. Each blackberry seems to have it’s own unique flavour. My kids gravitate towards the giant, round berries, heavy with juice. Sometimes this strategy succeeds and they shout out in delight, ‘YUMMY’. More often it’s a muted ‘mmm’, and occasionally a startled ‘yuck - so sour!’
I have noticed that the smaller ones are sweeter, more concentrated. I love how each taste is different. To me, a blackberry is a complex kind of a flavour and I find myself longing to try to make a blackberry wine. Maybe next year…
The last few days I have been much more intentional with my morning walks than usual. I have kept my phone zipped away (apart from the odd picture). I’ve brought a tub to gather blackberries, and was greeted by haw, rosehip and elder too.
I’ve lived here for almost five years and this walk was a big reason for making the move. The house is nice, but there are nice houses in lots of places. I was thrilled to have wildness on my doorstep. I still am, but I have noticed how with the passage of time I have started to take it for granted. Even felt that the walk ‘up the hill’ was a bit of drudgery. Berry season has snapped me out of that.
I’ve lived here for almost five years and I’ve never seen more than a few handfuls of elderflowers and berries within reach. And I’ve not picked those, because I like to leave most of what I find for the other creatures who rely on them to get through winter. Not like me, with my car and access to supermarkets… And yet this year I found elder trees laden with fruit. Spending an afternoon in a sunny garden sorting them for freezing and preserving has been incredibly joyous.
This piece came out of the weekly writing group I’ve been holding. The prompt was Thanks by W.S Merwin. I love the way half formed thoughts and things I didn’t even know I’d been thinking about emerge through this type of writing.
Gratitude cannot save us, passive as it is. Action is needed. You tell me that hope is a verb, that we try to change things because we believe they can be better, because we can imagine another way. Gratitude cannot save us, but I wonder how it changes things. Thanking those who will never change for their steadfastness, their tethered perspectives. You keep changing, so fast I can’t keep up. I wonder at lives like yours, lived in devotion. My walks the last few days have felt like prayers. Gathering summer’s blood for winter’s colds, giving thanks for it all. It changes everything - this time no more a chore. In the darkness, what will we think? Will there be only fear? Or will the final moments be filled with a wonder like love? A deep gratitude for it all? Will our thank-yous echo through time? We hope, we hope…
Walks as prayers, yes! Gorgeous Claire x
ooooh... summer's blood for winter's colds... love that line.