September 2026

Picking berries was a family tradition each year school let out. If it was not picking blueberries a block down from where I grew up, in the woods just behind my elementary school, it was strawberries an hour’s drive southeast to a large strawberry patch nestled among the pines of my grandparents’ property. Wherever we picked, we used plastic pitchers, ice cream buckets, and our bare hands.

Time always went uncomfortably slowly for me when I was picking all these berries, my small hands unsure of their strength or determination, but, when I was done, I appreciated what I did, and the literal fruits of my labor.

I felt this again with my creative practice this summer when I was in residency in Finland. I was in community with people who were looking for much of the same thing: quiet for their creative process and their creative work. The fruits of my labor there were never known, but they were something to be trusted. I walked in the forest and picked berries while processing the ideas in my mind, releasing the stagnated physical energy in my body from sitting and writing at my desk. I’d stop and eat lunch on a tree stump, looking ahead to the quiet knowingness around me. The birch and pines whistled to each other, and I just knew what I needed to do next. When we allow the quiet to arrange, let go, and trust in the unknown, guidance is always there.

For anyone dedicated to creative endeavors, time is always a challenge, a relationship to be nurtured and protected. The time behind the scenes is where our inner creative work truly sits, like a patient companion ready to play and endeavor the labor ahead. So, how do we know when to take a pause, keep going, or shift direction?

The responsibilities of our day and the importance of our relationships all ask energy of us. This summer, I (re)learned that I am the only one who truly knows what is inside of me, and it is to be trusted wholly with my heart and spirit. The mind will make its reasons known, and we surely need to apply logic to the practicalities of our days, but our dreams are always stronger, leading us to the truth in our lives.

I think a lot of messages out there in cyber space say that “happiness” is not necessarily “having to work hard,” that it means our life to be "easier," but those are our own nuanced definitions. I think we must work hard, but for the play of it. For the creative expression of it, and what it creates in this world.

Picking berries. It’s the simple things.