Blackberries...

I went on a slow morning walk yesterday. None of that push, drive, accumulate miles kind of walk that I usually do...just a slow meandering walk that was intent on discovery, movement and presence.  It was so lovely.

My first encounter was with a lovely calico cat named Lylah.  She came running to me like we were long lost friends.  Something about a cat that runs to you, makes you feel like you are the best thing ever.  I mean, a dog will almost always run to you, but a cat?  Kind makes you feel extraordinarily special.

So Lylah and I spent some time together, her talking and me petting.  Then she walked with me for a little while...

After my feline companion found interest in other things, I walked along and discovered wild blackberries lined the lane.  Mostly on one side, and for the most part, they were not in full bloom.  But there were tiny little pockets of well ripened berries and so I popped one into my mouth...very tart.  But the next one’s sweetness took me back to my childhood.

I must have been 6 or 7...my grandma died when I was 9 so it had to be closer to the age I am thinking.  She lived on a farm in Indiana and we went to visit most summers.  Wild blackberries thrived along the fence line between her farm and the next farm up the road.  I don’t know where everyone else was, but she and I were home alone and we decided to bake a pie.  My grandmother was an excellent cook. Not gourmet, just farm cooking, comfort food at its best.  And she was an excellent baker.  My mom and I have tried making her fudge for decades since she passed, we have never gotten it even close...

So we decided to bake a pie...but first, we had to walk the road and pick the berries.  We began, her with a large basket, me with a smaller one.  And we walked and talked and picked.  Me eating as many as I picked. Finally, she said, “stop eating them!  We won’t have enough for the pie!”  I nodded in agreement but made no changes to my behavior.

She was walking in front and I was literally eating the berries out of her basket as she talked and walked.  Finally, she turned around and said, “are you still eating the berries?”  I shook my head violently no.  But my face and hands told a different story...the stains on my hands and face evidence of my guilt.  She laughed and we continued picking...

I don’t remember making the pie.  But I do remember picking those blackberries...I remember the way my grandma smelled, clean, airy, fresh, softly aerating lily of the valley.  And I remember the way those blackberries tasted.  I have only experienced a taste like that one more time in my life.  It was from a neighbor’s bush that I pilfered a berry from on a walk one evening many years ago.  And that one berry brought back my childhood, my grandmother and the taste of those berries growing wild along that country road.  I have never tasted anything as wonderful in my life as those berries.  And the memory of her and her laughter makes me wistful and full of fondness all at once.

I found no blackberries yesterday that took me back to my childhood in taste, but the experience of walking down a country lane, foraging the berries from their prickly briar, did.  And for a moment, once more, she was alive, laughing and there with me.

I am not sure what you think of when you remember your grandmother...but for me, it is blackberries, cats and Lily of Valley perfume.  And yesterday, as I walked a redwood laden country lane, she was there with me again, picking blackberries, alive and as real as I was. And it was the best time, again, still...

Sometimes picking blackberries is more than just picking blackberries...sometimes it is your life slowed down so well and balanced that you get to relive a moment long gone, love someone again with a full heart and eating blackberries on some remote country road that feels, like for that moment anyway, time forgot...but you never will.