Lessons from the berry patch

Beth Stephenson
The Edmond Sun

EDMOND July 18, 2008 10:50 pm

— The temperatures hovered somewhere in the 90s recently as I picked wild blackberries with my youngest son. It wasn’t the first time I’d visited the berry patch, so I anticipated the cruel thorns by wearing long sleeves, long jeans and thick socks and by carrying a heavy dowel for moving canes. I oiled my hands before we started to minimize the purple staining, too. An hour into the activity, as the sweat trickled down my back and dripped off my hair, I began to contemplate what motivated me to suffer so much for the sake of blackberry jam.
I store homemade jam in quart jars because pints are impractical when we eat so much of it. My pickings from yesterday yielded three quarts of jam and cost about $3. I figure it’s worth about $30 but I spent over an hour picking berries and listening to my “assistant” threaten to die, faint or melt into a salty puddle. I used a half gallon of gasoline to get to the patch and it took me about an hour to make and bottle the jam. So that comes to about $5 an hour if I figure in my helper’s time. Obviously, the mathematical yield has nothing to do with why I pick wild blackberries. There are lessons to be learned in the berry patch that everyone needs.
Nothing worth having or doing comes without a price. The fat, sweet-tart berries come with scratched skin and sweat-soaked clothing, but by Thanksgiving I’ll remember the long, warm days of summer. We’ll slather blackberry jam on hot, homemade rolls and every bite seasoned with a little blood and sweat will seem like a happy memory.
I feel the same way about my college degree. By the time I went back to school to finish my bachelor’s degree, my husband was earning a comfortable living for us, our only debt was a small mortgage and our youngest was in school. Friends and family questioned why I took the time and expense, and I was sometimes discouraged or frustrated. It took me four years to earn 86 credits through an independent study program, but now that it’s Thanksgiving, and I consider all the things I learned and the ways I grew and developed through that college experience, it is inexpressibly sweet.
Another element to my berry undertaking is that there is something alluring about the fact that my patch of berries grows of its own accord, untamed, uncivilized and producing something so valuable. I have a greater understanding of hunters going out to harvest wild deer and other game, but my blackberries are even better, because nobody (except my miserable helper) suffers from the harvest. Somewhere in my nature there is a link to the earth that beckons me to partake.
Another factor that draws me to the thorny patch is my hatred of waste. The thought of those blackberries swelling and ripening shiny sweet and then wilting and dropping to the ground untasted is enough to bring tears to my eyes. If someone else was picking the wild patch, I could be satisfied with the u-pick berries. The same instinct makes me find ways to use leftover food in new meals and to combine shopping trips to save gas. A wasteful person is an ungrateful person.
As I listened to the moaning coming from under a nearby tree about the unsuitability of the weather for berry picking, I realized that in some primordial level, I enjoy it. I have a friend who had a stroke and lost the use of her left side. I have other friends whose knees won’t allow them to bend enough to pick berries and still more whose backs are too fragile. I hold the bowl and the stick in one hand and pick with my other. I can lift and bend and wrestle the thorny canes. The sweat trickling down my back and blood seeping up from a tiny thorn prick proves that I’m vitally alive. My face is tanned, my hair is sun-bleached and my fingers are stained. I experience life in many levels and each has its distinct flavor.
The lids all sealed on the jars of jam, I washed and labeled them “Wild blackberry, 7-08.” Nobody that has not been berry picking will know why I included the word “wild” on the lid, but I had to. It’s important to understanding the contents of the jar, and I don’t want to forget everything I put into the blackberry jam. It’s a jar filled with the complex recipes of life and I plan to remember and enjoy it completely.
BETH STEPHENSON is an Edmond resident.