An Injury Story

I ate a lot of wild raspberries this past weekend. This was unusual for me, as I don't often stop to forage on wild fruits—even in peak season. I'll notice them, feel good about their existence, and continue on. Perhaps I'm jaded from an entire summer of working on a blueberry farm. Or perhaps I'm too "on the go," always heads down ambling toward the day's objective.

But on this day in the Uintas my knee had been hurting, and as my feet pruned in the cold water cascading through Shingle Creek, these wild raspberries beckoned, almost every one of them ripe, bruised red, and nearly falling from the branch. 

I cleared the whole bush. I even spent time recovering the ones that fell to the ground to hide among tall stalks of meadow grass.

Now that I think about it... 

When I was a loud and energetic child, I would go to the gigantic berry bush in my family's backyard and pick and eat for a long time. It was probably late summer, and probably before a baseball practice I didn't want to go to. 

And now it's late summer again and I want to go to baseball practice more than anything, but my knee would scream at any hard stop or change in direction. No taking off from home plate nor crashing back into it.

And so I'm backing off, slowing down and eating wild raspberries.