The clearest, best moment came that summer. It was the awkward summer, the summer of losing him, and I wasn�t sure there was such a thing as me-without-him. I could not go back to being me-my-mother�s-girl; he�d changed that with his soft intense looks and his encouragement of my independence. I was already a million miles away, living in something uncertainly called The Future while my body went about its normal routine, rising every morning in the bed that had been mine, returning to sleep there every night.
On that morning the duty my body was slated for was the gathering of wild raspberries.
There are some berries that are simply hellish to pick. Blueberries come to mind. To pick blueberries means to stand out in the full sun, in a dusty-hot field, bending low over plants and trying to avoid nests of red ants that want the ripe berries as much as you do. Agreeing to pick blueberries is like volunteering for sunburn.
Blackberries aren�t that bad. The thorns can tear up your arms a little, and sometimes you see a bear, but the actual gathering of blackberries can be done on a pleasant stroll down one of the two-rut logging roads in the evening.
Raspberries are somewhere in the middle. The best raspberries grow in less-than-accessible fields, so to reach them Dad and I had to push our way through a variety of tangling things, walk past the wild apple tree where a red squirrel gave us what-for, and find the little clearing we�d discovered the year before. It was morning nearing noon, and it was going to be a hot day, but the woods gave us cool breezes and shade for our eyes.
The clearing was as we�d hoped. Big, red berries weighed down the arms of the bushes; behind them, flowers and hard, green little berries announced that there would be some left for next time. A few straggling bumblebees rocked the flowers back and forth before going home to sleep through the hot part of the day. Their buzzing, the skweeeeeee of the cicadas, and the rhythmic, percussional chip, chip of the chipmunks provided background music for the scene. We walked quietly into the raspberry bushes. Dad circled to the other side, and we started picking.
Sunlight slanted in with a midsummer intensity. Dust and pieces of broken spiderwebs drifted in the rays; from my safe spot in the shadow of a poplar I could see golden flecks churning in the air. I was aware that the sky was fiercely blue, but I kept myself focused on picking out the red from the green of leaves. Reach out, pluck the berry, drop it into the empty coffee can I had for a bucket. The ripe berry�s little hollow thunk against the metal bottom of the can was satisfying to hear. Reach out again, pluck a berry, drop. Reach out. When the berries stopped making the little drumbeat, I knew I was making progress; I�d covered the whole bottom of the can. After that the sound of berry dropping onto berries was no louder than the beating of my own heart. Once in a while I�d pick a berry and find a big, plump, grey shield bug sitting on it. The shield bugs released their characteristic sharp odor as I moved them out of my bucket and onto parts of the bushes I�d already been through. And reach out again, pluck berries, drop them into the bucket. The sameness, the automatic-ness of the action was almost hypnotic. I didn�t have to think about anything; my being could be reduced for a while to my arm and the simple motion. Reach. Pick. Drop. Reach.
And then, in the middle of this trance, it happened.
While the part of me that thinks was occupied with berry-picking, my senses were completely open in a way I�ve experienced only once or twice. My eyes took in the bright green leaves, the blue sky; my ears absorbed the rustle of bushes and the distant singing of bird and cicada; my nose caught the sweet raspberry and pungent shield-bug smells. The warm breeze kissed my skin and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. And it was all somehow connected: the essence of this moment was the combination of every physical sensation, every sense-impression that rained down upon my unguarded psyche. In that moment I was supremely happy. This was it, the thing I�d sought for so long, the sense of self.
In that moment I knew who I was. I was me-part-of-everything, I was me-standing-picking-berries, I was me-indestructible. I stopped my reach-pick-drop dance and looked up at the harsh beautiful blue sky, which for once I felt at home under, and I knew somehow that this was completion, and everything from now on was just elaboration on a theme.
Then the silent thunder that had filled me subsided, and sensation became ordinary again�and reach, and pluck, and drop.
