Berry, Berry Good

I've been struggling with this post for about a day now. There is so much more I want to say than, "Look, we picked berries." And I've been wondering why.

Finally, I figured it was because I was trying to talk about other things and using berries as a lens or metaphor or something. And it wasn't some weird attempt to be profound, it was trying to put words to what my experience around this yearly trip is. I'm still not sure I have it right.


Our outing to the berry patch yesterday felt kind of like a pilgrimage. I was thinking about why we do this. It's a long drive, only me and two of my kids really love berries (spouse and first child loathe them), and we can only go about once per year. But the summer doesn't feel right to me without this trip, and it dawned on me that this is how you build a family's memories -- layering experiences over and over again, so that each repetition of the activity is informed and colored by the previous ones. Like fine layers of glaze building up to make luminous colors, rather than one thick blob of paint which doesn't let light through.

All of that aside, it was like the Keystone Kops getting there. While we waited for my sister to get her hair cut, the Things and cousins picked about 10 pounds of tiny plums in her back yard. A friend who was going with us was dropped off; another friend called and said she'd come and meet us.


I figured that cooking down and straining the plums was probably a good use of our time. Finally, she had about a gallon of "plum gunk." We'll make jam on our schedule that way; the rest of the week and weekend didn't look promising.

Then our friend showed up and we began the "who sits where" negotiations. I ended up with all of the (rather loud) middle aged children, while my eldest and youngest rode with my sister. I could see my big child talking, laughing and gesturing cheerily at her aunt. "At least they're having fun," I thought. Needless to say, I rarely get the incandescent side of that child these days.

On the way there, we made a total of four stops. One bathroom indoors, one bathroom outdoors. The indoors one was accompanied by coffee-purchasing. One re-buckling of a carseat, one gas. I thought, "This is what happens when you get more than two homeschoolers together. . ." and decided, quite consciously, to let go of any expectations about when we'd get there or what it would be like. This trip is just something I love, and it didn't matter how I executed it.

Finally, and it's taken me years to learn to read the road cues, we got to the farm. Loading up into their car were beloved friends, and while I would have loved time to catch up, they were done. Of course, we couldn't go right out and pick because the kids were predictably hungry.
Since we're veterans, there was food to stuff in them and, armed with insider knowledge from our departing friends, we headed to the "good end" of the patch. Some of us are more serious about picking than others. We call Thing 1"The Machine." Her brother inspires different thoughts:

Just like that, while the day was unique, the rhythm felt exactly the same as every other year. I remembered the year I made myself sick eating berries, hanging a very pregnant belly over my knees sitting on a little red wagon. I remembered the year the berries were all over 1.5" long, and the year that they didn't taste very sweet. So it was like looking at a beloved face and seeing it at different ages -- or looking at pictures of someone younger and seeing their adult face in them. Layers upon layers, all in some irrigated berry vines.


The children are getting better at picking, or at least better at picking when they want to pick. We had to remind some of the male ones not to throw berries, and Thing 2 seemed to get distracted by the cosmetic options offered by them.
I tried to make Thing 1 laugh and she dismissed my efforts.


This year, the berries aren't as large as I've seen them, but they've never tasted like this -- the best of blackberries with a tannic kick at the end. Easy to gorge instead of picking, and the organic practices of the farm make it okay that the kids do that. Someone, due to her height and total lack of impulse control, had it easy:


We kept crying out, "Make every berry count!" and coached the kids to look for "Dark, soft, big berries!"

I only wish we'd gotten one flat more. Somewhere I lost count, or we would have had one more. Tonight there will be hand pies for dessert and bagging of the frozen berries, and then the frozen ones will quietly slip into the new freezer, so that we can warm ourselves with the taste of summer no matter what time of year it is. Really, almost nothing makes me happy like this.


I was so mellowed out by the entire berry experience that when my kids asked to stop at the beach, and we were the only ones stopping, I said -- Yes! They know my Rogue Wave paranoia, but I managed to breathe and stay close to the little one and not try to notice the weird color of the sky because of the fires and how ominous that made this little gray beach seem. Instead, I watched my children shed their shoes and run at the edge of the water like gangly birds and I was so glad to be there.

I did try to distract them into a lovely little carved-out cave in the rocks away from the water, for a little bit, but when that faded, I threw seaweed as joyfully as I could and didn't think about my precious babies tumbling in the water like it. I just was there.

Until I couldn't take it any more, so one more cliff walk and we headed back home. It was a very good trip.