Updated: Oct 8
The soil around here breathes, one can sense its rhythm.
I began here, this soil is my home. I live where the marshes meet the sea. I grew on track, hitting my milestones with precision. My roots took hold easily; breaking naturally through my healthy seed coat. I don’t remember feeling any one way or another about my roots taking hold, it all seemed pre-ordained.
Looking back now, it dawns on me that the effort needed to achieve growing up is powered by mystery. Sciences and religions and artists have all attempted to explain it but it's all just unimaginative propaganda, as far as I can tell.
Early on, growing into myself was easy, as I mentioned, but perhaps more importantly, it felt natural. Stuff happened, just as it did for most raspberry bushes.
I remember when my plumule shoot first pushed through and dawn greeted me. She was incredibly beautiful, blonde and sparkly. From there, I perched on the hillside where the marshes met the sea and continued to grow. My leaves came next, diamond shaped and emerald veined.
As I grew, I made friends. The meandering snail, many ants marching and steadfast pollinators echoed sweetly in my early days.
Throughout my early life, inside the raspberry bramble, I did what seemed meant for me. Summer sunlight threw rays down and I ate them up. Dew settled on my leaves and they soaked on in. And then one magical day, a bursting occured. My fetal fruits popped intensely out of me. My drupelets were small and hard but as the summer days stretched on, they became plump and shiny and soft. They were my most proud part and tending to them took much of my energy. The rest of me, my roots and leaves and stem, all settled into agreement; the drupelet fruits were the stars. They were gorgeous. They were valuable. And now, I was worth something because I had fruit and it was wild and our soil was rich, brimming with riches.
The rest of me stopped growing and poured energy into the fruit. At this point, being a raspberry bush wasn’t all that exciting. I breezed past each milestone and made myself the success story I am today: a healthy raspberry bush with sweet raspberry fruit living inside a beautiful, wild grove. It was all very obvious and mechanical and some days it was straight boredom.
But, on the night of the Strawberry Moon, I was in good spirits and found myself to be bursting with glossy fruit. A rare magic had descended on my bush, for my fruits were bursting with a desire; they wanted, more than anything, to become... a tart.
Yearning took over. I became obsessed with helpng my fruit to become a raspberry tart; one baked to such mouthwatering perfection that it would be revered for decades to come.
Served on a special ceramic plate, the celebratory tart shaped red-stained lips into smiles. Iconic adoration was the goal. Delighting the senses of humans with wild, once-in-a-lifetime taste was the destiny of my fruit. Being in union, in partnership, with flour and sugar and citrus and butter was the goal. I wanted my fruit to a star.
Knowing my fruit's destiny plagued me, for I knew that tart-life was rare.
This dreamy fate relied on the exact right human to bend down at the exact right time and pluck my fruit into a straw basket and whisk them away from me. Equally as concerning, if no humans came to these hills where marshes meet the sea, our tart dreams were finished. If, instead of the perfect human, a bird plucked my fruit, our dreams were dashed. A rain storm or gust of wind could selfishly steal them. Worse, if a human plucked my juicy fruit and stashed them in a grotesque plastic box, only to forget about them while they molded over, the dream would turn tragic tale. But perhaps worst of all, if fate demanded that my special fruit stay here, on my own woody cane, wallowing while slowly shriveling and dropping to the ground, dreams would be devastated.
The existential yearning to become a lauded raspberry tart settled in. It was all we could think about; the yearning to be chosen for our true taste. We wanted to be celebrated for a glorious union with flour and sugar and citrus and butter. We wanted to be loved by the mouthes of overworked and exhausted humans, finally filled with enchanting yums and wows, and oh mys.
In another part of the landscape, on this summer day, Mary had awaken. She was anxious and fed up and unsatisfied. So she got up, dressed in running gear and took off. Her legs matched the rhythm of the music piping into her ears. Mary ran around the bends of where the marshes met the sea, a trail of fiery frustration smoking in her wake. She ran through the raspberry bushes dotting the hills. Out of breath, she stumbled and scratched herself on my thorns.
Blood surfaced, red as my own sweet cluster of fruit. Pain sometimes releases frustration for humans and it seemed that this woman needed to feel it, for she smiled. And then she cackled and laughed and tears came through her eyeballs, swishing and spilling onto her face skin.
Instead of a straw basket, she brought her hands down around her waist and scooped off her shirt. She carefully and delicately reached down and plucked my fruits. My special, once-in-a-lifetime fruits relaxed right off of my woody cane into her sweaty palm. She exhaled when they landed and whispered, “Let’s make pavlova, shall we,” She harvested more of my fruits, choosing her selects as she stepped through my bramble.
That afternoon, with my druplets missing from my cane, I dreamed of them becoming pavlova. I dreampt of the woman bringing them back to her home, walking through her garden and nodding to a big fruit tree growing there. Rounding the corner into the kitchen and plopping my raspberries into a ceramic bowl made by one of her friends. I dreamt of the human’s water source rinsing them and the tiny droplets reflecting rainbows.
I wondered why she chose pavlova instead of a tart and decided that perhaps the pillowy nature of eggs would make my fruit sing more sweetly on the taste buds of humans.
I dreamt of her whipping and measuring and working through the steps to make something out of her ordinary. As dusk took hold and the bramble exhaled, I shuddered, for I knew that woman had served the glorious raspberry pavlova.
No forks or plates were used at her table, instead ringed fingers picked and scooped. Together, at a round table, the other humans sung a symphony of ooos and yums and ahhhs and ohhhs and dammmmmn girls. Together, my fruit rose fragrantly to the occasion and took a well-deserved bow.
It’s now, looking back, that I feel like a callow bush, eager to listen longer to our seasons and to the possibilities that boom through the brambles. I am ready for my fruit to be painted by famous artists or to make up part of a jam empire or to help finance a global culinary shift. I settle in, as autumn arrives early and drift, dreaming fruity dreams.