Blackberries

With various deadlines gnawing at my little brain and a fledgling summer cold pressing against the remainder of my body, I do the wise thing after a long day at work and go for a 24-mile bike ride. I'd left the office with good intentions--take work home with me and make some progress, then brew some peppermint tea and tackle preparations for the course I start teaching this week. Having loaded my bike onto my car 10 hours earlier, however, was akin to loading obligation into my life, so I promised myself a short ride at an easy pace. Short turned into average once I got going, though, and easy switched to less easy when someone passed me and pressed my not-yet-extinguished enjoyment of competition.

Concentrating on catching the rider ahead of me (which I never did) was at least good for forcing the weight of deadlines into a small mental compartment; how my cold will respond is still in question. But, at the end of the ride, I wandered to the small patch of wild blackberry bushes I have visited several times this summer, each visit finding a few more ripe berries that, for some reason, the birds and other people seem to have overlooked. Happy to sacrifice pieces of skin to the brambles, I experimented with small berries and large: which are the sweetest?

It is, perhaps, a silly quest to find that one perfect berry, and each time I found what I thought was a good one, I continued picking and hoping to find a piece of fruit that was even better. Always searching for something better might be the sign of general unhappiness with what is, but rather than dwell on that, I'll dwell on remembering the taste of those berries that were just right--warmed by the afternoon sun, purple and sweet, within easy reach.