It ‘s hazy and hot, no breeze stirring the grasses. We receive boxes and started trudging through rows of apple trees to reach the raspberry patch. I always walk behind them. I like watching them move, the motion of their bodies so different from each other, the shape of their heads unique from behind. The sway of their shoulders, the inward turning of their tanned toes. So familiar to me. I feel full, and happy. And I remember that this is the kind of day I dream of all winter. Hot, sunny, and happy. There’s something about picking fruit that I have always loved. And now it makes me smile to know that they do, too. Waking early to go pick berries, sweating in the morning sun, listening to the 3 of them chatter, exclaiming over “a ton right over here! C’mere, guys!” I know this day is not a big moment, not an epoch of great importance in our life. But it matters to me. Because they won’t stay little for long. And someday they might roll their eyes at the suggestion of getting up on a Saturday to go picking. So I want to remember. Today.
** We picked our berries here.
~“I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens, but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string.”
— L.M. Montgomery
