…And learned that I don’t know how to use one…
I decided to pick more blackberries – this time for eating and perhaps liquor making.  But I knew I’d picked a lot this weekend, so I got out the machete to try and cut down some brambles.  But I learned that it takes more to use a machete than just swinging it at the brambles — it didn’t really help. So I ended up using the same technique as on Saturday: a rake and standing on the brambles. I ended up with a bunch of berries, but got a little bored. I may see if I can come up for the day next weekend to pick more.  Maybe… While the brambles surrounded me, I saw a parallel to my life.
Sometimes life is fraught with brambles and the only way to get to the good fruit is by working your way through them. Sometimes you get scratched in the process and stained as the over-ripe (or bad) fruit bursts on you. But, if you persevere you can end up with lots of good fruit.
My life feels like that right now.  I hope the rawness and the sensitivity are starting to heal over, now that things are progressing.  That remains to be seen, I suppose.  Just as time will heal the scratches I have all over my hands, arms and ankles, time will heal the wounds and sensitivity that I have.  As time progresses, I suppose the challenges of last week will be more clear or resolve too – which people in my life represent the ‘good fruit’ and which the ‘over-ripe fruit’.  I do hope that, soon, I will enter a section of my life’s path that may have the bushes and brambles to the side: I’d like to have a section that’s bramble-less, where I can reach the fruit where they’re reach-able just by standing on the edge of the path. Right now I feel like my entire path is overgrown with brambles with fruit out of reach and I’m trying to find a way into the clearing – that’s currently out of my sight.
I suppose once I find a way into the clearing, I’ll have a better sense of things at that time.  “Hindsight is 20/20” or so they say… For right now, I stand at ‘okay’ (or perhaps even ‘good and rejuvenated’ from my weekend) but I am still uncertain who I can trust – I don’t need any more ‘stains’ and ‘scratches’.