Picking Berries

When I was talking to my real estate agent about living in Guilford, the first thing she said was, “you are going to love living here, we have orchards and you can pick your own apples and berries.” I have never cut grass; I have only really raked leaves once because a friend of mine told me her dad said he bet I couldn’t. Now I was leaving the hustle and bustle of Pittsburgh to go pick my own berries? Nope. I don’t play the Grapes of Wrath.

We did try to do it the second weekend we lived here. It was apple season and you had to wait in line for the big trucks to take you up the actual orchards. This was before you even started picking the apples. The crowds were too big and the wait too long for any of my children, forget the one that can’t stand a crowd or loud noises.

When I was in high school, it was the early 90s and Kurt Cobain and all that grunge stuff was popular and my parents were divorcing. I was headed to a women’s college, and I was obsessed with Sylvia Plath. I loved her pain and her depression and the world hates me and doesn’t understand me angst. The bottom line is she was a girl from New England going to Smith and working for a magazine. Come on girl, you weren’t waiting in line at a soup kitchen. But I loved her. I wrote papers on her. I memorized “Daddy,” yeah, I know. I didn’t have much of a life then either.

OK, now I am a mother of three little ones and I know that Sylvia killed herself while her toddlers were napping. I know that isn’t funny and please don’t take this the wrong way, but who hasn't used naptime at least once for a full blown psychotic mommy melt down? But since I have other outlets and know, thanks to the internet, that I am not alone, dear Sylvia, you and I have parted ways. I will stay on the earth as long as I am allowed….

At least I thought we had parted ways until I agreed to a berry picking play date. It was my children and three other moms and their kids at the blueberry patch. All the kids were ready to pick berries with their buckets. It wasn’t nearly as crowded or confusing as that day in the apple orchards. They had the bushes marked for picking, and off we went. Yeah right. Sylvia’s brilliant Bitter Strawberries popped into my head, and it has stayed there. It was still there three months later when we went for raspberries with daddy. Here we go, my Blueberry picking against her memories turned poetry of her Bitter Strawberries:

All morning in the strawberry field
They talked about the Russians
Squatted down between the rows
We listened
We heard the the head woman say,
‘Bomb them off the map.’

In the blueberry fields, probably closer to eleven than the original plan of ten, the six kids all ran in completely different directions and didn’t hear a single thing any of the mommies said about healthcare, if we mentioned it at all…

Two Children laughed at tag
In the tall grass,
Leaping awkward and long-legged

Page’s kids decide they would rather throw rocks than pick berries and invite the other boys to join in the fun. The baby squirms and wants to join them. He has incredible aim for a twelve month old. Wow.

How many quarts?
She recorded in the notebook

Most people’s buckets were filled and the totals were in the 20 dollar range, cash or check only. My three kids picked less than four dollars worth.

Cupping the berry protectively before
Snapping off the stem
Between thumb and forefinger

What nice fine motor skill work. Occupational therapists should really encourage berry picking, considering my daughter had about zero fine motor ability right before she turned three. I couldn’t get her to pick up a cheerio with a pincer grasp. I tried broken crayons, I tried three little pig finger puppets from Guatemala, and I tried popcorn. No go. But she did really love picking the blueberries for a little while. Then you remember no attention span and after about fifteen minutes, give or take ten, my kids were yanking on everything and shoving it in the bucket.

We did try to recreate our “Pick your own” experience with Daddy in the raspberry field, and I did try harder that day. They each had a hat they refused to wear, and I put sunscreen on them. But no one, and I mean no one, told me that raspberry bushes had prickles on them. Good night nurse the screaming that day isn’t worth writing about. Sometimes I am almost sure my husband wishes he had married someone else who would have given him cute kids that would have worn matching Gymboree outfits and filled their baskets to the brim without eating any or smearing berries on themselves or scream to get out of the stroller. Then we could have gone home and made tarts from scratch and read Jamberry together and scrapbook the day.

Sylvia so should have blogged….