6-26-16
Today, I learned not to underestimate the beauty of small hands picking berries.
We close on our new house on Friday, but this morning, we were there to drop off a few things.
We walked around the property and into an area we hadn’t yet wandered. There, we found bushes and bushes of black raspberries and blackberries. My children squealed with delight as they ran wild, picking and eating the berries. Their faces were a familiar red with the residue of the berries that I had forgotten; my daughter’s hands still have the stains as evidence even now, eight hours later.
And I can’t explain fully the joy that gave me–watching them pick and eat the berries at will, sharing handfuls with one another and running to give me a berry. When I was a small girl, we used to pick berries along the country road we lived on and I remember eating my fill of berries. In my memory, time was slower then; life was simpler. The sun glistened through the tree canopy and we were just happy.
Today, I felt like I was right back where I started but even better was that I had my kids right back there with me. What joy. My soul felt completely at rest.
There’s such beauty in the everyday if we just open our eyes to see it. And our children can take us right back to where we started. For me, that’s on a country road picking berries in the muted sun. And today, I was back there in a way. And it was perfect.
Thanks for Mothering the Divide with me as we open our eyes to see the beauty that our children see. What a gift it is to watch these small hands pick berries.