The first thing I learned about Seattle is that there are entire hillsides held up by blackberries. On my first visit here, weeks before we were set to move, we signed a lease on an apartment and celebrated with a walk in Discovery Park, where we stumbled upon a cornucopia of blackberries growing along a trail. That was the first moment I felt sure I would like this city after all, even if I had reservations about its reputation for cold rain and cold people.
In the fall and spring, we curse blackberry thorns as we work to pull them out of our garden beds, our yards. It’s a battle we won’t win. In the winter, I pay $6 for a clamshell of sad, bitter blackberries shipped in from thousands of miles away. But for a few weeks in the summer, the city is full of free blackberries and I feel like the richest woman in the world. Right now, there’s an absolute embarrassment of riches right around the corner from our place, and we make a detour there every time we leave the house. Walking the dog? Stop at the blackberry patch. Catching the bus? Take some berries for the road. Tipsy on the way home from dinner? Have some dessert.
Yesterday, I stopped there on the way home from a lovely lunch with friends. (Is there anything more decadent than lunch dessert?) In the last few days, more berries have turned from green to red to black, and some have shriveled on the vine. I thought about grabbing a container from home, and maybe even a step ladder to get at the higher vines, so that I could pick enough berries for a pie. But something about it felt wrong; who am I to hoard these riches? I’ve delighted in seeing other neighbors pause here, marveling at the unexpected gift of fresh, sun-warmed berries. I think about Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass — “Take only what you need. Take only that which is given. Never take more than half. Leave some for others.” The magic of street berries lies in the joy of stumbling upon such abundance, and the acknowledgment that good things are ephemeral. Take your handful and move on.
Thanks, Jane! I read your post just after swimming with friends at a small park a short trail walk from their new house. “Wait till you see the blackberries,” they said, as they pointed to bushes alongside the parking lot. “And just around the bend in the trail there are the best ones.” We live in New York, close to the border of Canada, & are always delighted by the nearing-late-summer-splendor of wild berries!
Here in Florida we, too, have wild blackberries (and huckleberries). We used to pick baskets-full as children for our mother to make cobbler, use fresh on ice cream, as face paint. Even our dogs got into the act, learning to peel back their lips to pluck the fruit from the brambles without pricking their tender snouts. Blackberry season is early here (April-May) and over far too soon!