Flashes of Panic

After my raspberry glut the other week, I enjoyed my berries in a completely different way this morning.

I had set out on a long-ish loop in my hometown along a course I’d never run before. I was around an hour and ten minutes out, and since waking up I’d had only about two-thirds of a squeeze-bottle of Gatorade. (I’d stashed the bottle and remaining contents in the weeds under a stop sign when I started the loop, and was about a half-mile from retrieving it.) I was under a self-imposed time deadline for the run.

When I saw the telltale leaves, I looked quickly for blueberries, and saw a few ripe ones. A quick stop can’t hurt, I reasoned, so I stopped for about thirty seconds. I picked and at maybe a dozen berries—not quite a mouthful, for low-bush blueberries—and ran on.

Those few berries were everything I needed; I could’ve had a quarter pint and achieved the same feeling. I had the taste in my mouth and all the feelings that go with it, and I’d grabbed it in an impulse stop by the side of a lightly-traveled road.

Immediately after retrieving my Gatorade bottle, I saw another, bigger blueberry patch, with ripe berries practically screaming out from under the leaves at ten feet away. But I had somewhere to be, and I didn’t stop. It turns out I had had time, but I can’t imagine that more berries would have been anything more than the few I had picked.

Technorati Tags: blueberries