Raspberry Picking

Every day I go out into the field at a nearby farm to pick raspberries, and every day, there are more raspberries than I can pick. 

I walk between the rows, grabbing the ripest ones closest to me, eating one berry for every three or four that I toss into my basket. Bees buzz around my hands, but I’m not afraid of them. Should I be afraid of them? 

Are you allergic? A young friend asks me. She’s visiting this week, up in our neck of the woods for a string of college visits, and I’m along for the ride. This friend is a senior in high school and light years ahead of eighteen-year-old me in every way. 

No, I tell her.   

Then, you’re good.

She sets up the college tours online, signs herself up for the info sessions, comes downstairs in the morning dressed more fashionably and professionally than I have ever dressed in my life. Is there a gene for this? If so, I don’t have it. She takes my phone and finds the admissions office for the schools, taps in the locations, and hands the phone back to me. 

How long has it been since I’ve been on one of these tours? My own whirlwind visits a million years ago when I had no clue about college, only that I needed to go to one as far away from home as possible. The dozens of visits I took with my own kids, who were like my fun, smart, Gen Z (or whatever she is) visitor. Wise beyond their years, comfortable in their own skins, curious. 

I am curious too. What would it be like to go off to college now, to be starting out as a young person in this strange, crazy, dark world? How can a school help them navigate AI, climate change, fascism? (Of course, I don’t mention any of this to my young friend.) She loves the colleges we visit. I love them too! 

All of the possibilities. The classes to take. The clubs to join. The study abroad programs and internships. One school has its own ski mountain and you can take ski lessons for free. Another school has its own equestrian team. The campuses we tour are as different as can be, but also, somehow, exactly the same, the peppy tour guides walking backwards, spouting off stats about job opportunities and financial aid packages. 

We rehash the pros and cons of each school on the drive home, and then we head back to the farm and the raspberry field, where the raspberries are as abundant as ever. I have enough for today, but now I am picking for the future, freezing and storing for the winter that everyone up here keeps warning me about. 

I admit it. I'm afraid. The long dark days that are coming. The snow. The cold. But wouldn’t we be fools to let a day like this pass us by? 

The sun bright and warm on our faces. All of these bees buzzing. Our fingers stained with berry juices as we nudge aside the branches and reach for what we have been given.