it's funny how the world turns

As I was picking blackberries the other day, memories of the summer I spent picking raspberries crowded my brain. It was the summer before grade seven, I believe, and our mom thought that my sister and I would benefit greatly from summer jobs. So we picked berries. I've never had such a hot, dirty, and otherwise exhausting job. I think that I made about $300 for two months of waking up early to get to the fields by eight, spending the day on my knees in the dirt so that I could find the berries hiding under leaves, and sweating through to five to find that I hadn't picked as much as my friend, who had done it the summer before and was far better than I (this was during my fiercely competitive years.) I got a pretty good farmer's tan, though. And a repulsion to picking berries.

Blackberries, though, they're worth it. They're the coquettishly flirtatious members of the berry family. They hang black and plump on the bush, but push you away with their huge thorns. A successful blackberry picking trip must include long pants and sleves, a pruning tool of some sort, and nerves unafraid of spiders and thorns. A bucket or two is no small accomplishment.

We used to go blackberry picking on Mt Lehman road. It's all paved and housed now, but there was an abandoned property with an empty house at the back. I remember wild apple trees, as well. A wonderful place to explore and wonder about all the people who lived there before, what made them laugh and cry, why they abandoned the house. Now I pick blackberries in my front yard. Funny how the world turns. And goes round and round.

I rediscovered Pandora today. Who would have though that if you put David Gray and Jollie Holland in, you get Lindsay Lohan singing "Frankie and Johnny" from _A Prairie Home Companion._