Spring arrives.
A Blackberry Project update.
I worked in the blackberries a few times this week. The weather was beautiful, and my son needed me out of the house one afternoon, so it was a good time to venture out. I posted a little video on my YouTube channel about how one of those sessions went. You can watch it here. First April Blackberry Clearing
Side note: I noticed tonight that there was an unsolicited troll-like comment on one of my early videos. The nerve! I deleted it and blocked the commenter. However did they find me, I wonder? And just why? What was the point?
Anyway.
Maybe it’s because I’m feeling a little worn out tonight, or maybe it’s because of the troll, but I feel compelled to insert a disclaimer here. Like, I know that these videos are not professional and not important in the grand scheme of things, but I’m sharing them anyway. Not because I am hoping that you will be impressed by me and my berry taming! Or that I have secret hopes of becoming a blackberry wrangling influencer with a YouTube following to rival the Kardashians! Not so much. I’m making these videos because I told myself that I would do them. I committed to showing up once a week or so, to be faithful to the process of doing a little in the berries whenever I can, in order to find out if my little bit makes a difference, if it matters at all.
That’s the thing: to find out if it matters.
I had some help in the blackberries this week. My friend who owns a yard care company came with one of his workers and loaded up my most recent piles of brambles. He also climbed up into one of my trees with his chainsaw and cut down the annoying, dead branches that bopped me on the head whenever I walked under them. The branches and the vines filled the truck.
I was so grateful. Because I can do a lot with the blackberries, with my clippers and two pairs of gloves. But anything that involves a chainsaw seems a little overwhelming. Which is not to say that I couldn’t learn to maneuver one. But it’s not high on my list of “fun things I want to try” anytime soon. So I am grateful for people who can. We’ve talked about that before here. How good it is that we all have different gifts, that we do different things to serve. I’m not a heart surgeon or a truck driver or someone who can build a road, or for now, someone who can use a chainsaw. But other people can. And when they show up, good things happen.
Beloved community, no?
So today, nine months into the Blackberry Project, where does it stand?
There is a clearing.
There is a clearing that wasn’t there a year ago. Day by day, week by week, I have gone outside these last months, put on my two pairs of gloves, grabbed my clippers, and worked a little. Not much. Somehow, all of those little sessions, some where I didn’t think I was doing anything at all, but why don’t I just show up and see what happens? All of those have made a clearing.
It feels sometimes like the berries are monsters. Also, all the invasive weeds. I worry that if I turn my back, even for a moment, that they will take over the space again, probably overnight one night, that they have power, and I am unable to make a lasting change, to plant something new there, to watch it grow, to nurture it and help it. That it doesn’t matter what I do, all these little clearing sessions, that the berries will ultimately triumph.
That is just not true. The berries are quick growers, but they didn’t overtake this land in one day.
I think the only way for them to win is for me to stop showing up.
Which is why I’m making these YouTube videos, writing these posts.
My dream is to return this land to its native state. To root out all that is invasive and nonnative: the blackberries, the vinca, the English ivy, the Velcro weeds, the burry clovers. I would love to nurture and bring back the plants that are supposed to be here: the manzanita, the oaks and sugar pines. The ranger on our Sutter’s Mill walking tour (which I wrote about last week) said that one of the main problems with the Himalayan blackberries is that they choke out all other plants so that nothing else can grow there. They literally take over the whole world. Which is different from the native California blackberries, which grow in a way that allows other plants to flourish, too. The only good news for me in that charming fact is that since nothing else has grown up with the berries, once I clear them, there is a little space, a little room, a little hope for something new. I planted some meadow mix down in the clearing yesterday. I will water it and see if it grows.
I’m a big fan of hope, and space, and something new growing where before there was only brambles and thorns. When I show up, and venture out into the berries, and do a little clearing, even a little, it makes a difference for the berries. More than that, though, it makes a difference in me. A big one. I finish my twenty minutes and go back in the house and feel better about everything, just about. This place always, always, every time, gives me life, too. I started nine months ago saying that I wanted to help heal the land. The truth is that every time I go outside, and show up, and do the little that I can, the land heals me.
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