Strawberries for Now

It's strawberry season. That time when the aromatic, sweet, and juicy strawberries are ripe. We were very fortunate, this year, because Aunt Martha had a lush strawberry patch that she shared with us. We quickly consumed the first batch of berries she gave us, but luckily, we were invited to pick more.

Strawberries from Aunt Martha

Wally was excited with this prospect and started discussing everything we could do with them—make strawberry short cake, make smoothies, make jam and the list went on. So we set off one afternoon to go picking. As we were picking, Wally asked me if I remembered one of his favorite books from when he was a child called Blueberries for Sal. In this book, a little girl named Sal goes blueberry picking with her mother but finds herself eating the berries faster than they can fill the bucket. He said that he was reminded of the book because he was doing somewhat of the same thing. However, we did end up with some to take home.

When we poured our berries into a container, there weren't as many as we had hoped for, but we still planned to make strawberry jam. However, when I returned to the kitchen a couple of hours later, all of the berries were gone. I guess the fresh berries were just too tempting.

Now you see them.       Now you don't.

I started to be annoyed, but changed my mind. We could enjoy the strawberries now or we could enjoy them later, and I guess now was okay. I reminded myself about the practice that is hard for me—being in the moment. That helped. Then I didn't feel so guilty about my part in the disappearing berries.