Life's Important Decisions

At 1:30 this morning, I was lying in bed trying to make one of the most important decisions for my future:

blackberries or alfalfa.

See, blackberries are God's way of reminding me that I'll never have to worry about going hungry again because there are still a few things Corporate America can't steal and things the government can't tax. The first time I ate blackberries in the wild was an act of defiance to my mother. I broke all the rules. There was no sink to wash the berries, there was no careful inspection for spiders or razor blades or ominous implements of destruction as was with the annual paranoid Halloween traditions.

Granted, I had no parental units within at least a thousand mile radius, but even so, unwashed blackberries could lead to the swallowing of a spider that would manifest in my brain and cause an incurable, undetectable disease that, upon my death, would go airborne and cause an outbreak of plague, leaving me constantly on the run in the afterlife.

My headstone would serve as a warning for small children who would grow up terrified of eating berries.

Alfalfa has less tragic connotations, at least in regards to health. No, that's probably a lie. See, farmtowns have little to offer beyond farms and county fairs that double as class reunions. But every September, alfalfa is God's way of saying "I still hear you." Because August comes crashing down with black-sky thunderstorms, 108 degree fading summer nights, flash floods and suddenly the sky clears for September. Mid-90s, chance of thunder and 100% likelihood that you will smell like pesticides until the crops have all been harvested.

We will probably all die someday from a pesticide-borne disease that causes our brains to multiply within out skulls until we have so many thoughts going through our many minds that we go mad and all implode. Our gravestones will appear on all organic produce labeling companies as a reminder that "only crazies would choose non-organic food." Or something like that...

But fresh-cut alfalfa still smells like hope on the horizon, no matter how desolate your fishbowl life might appear. Someday the crops will leave that little town and all the dreamers will follow.

And follow I did... to wild blackberries. To picking thorns out of my jeans late in the summer. There is rain here, but never thunder. Never any proof of God's power and strength. Storms should shake the ground. Just as blackberries should always be soft and beautiful.

Unfortunately for some of life's greater beauties, there is no chance for coexistence.

These are the thoughts that keep me from sleeping.
But alas, it is Christmas morning! I still have no parental units within a thousand mile radius and there are no thunderstorms... but in the back of the freezer there is a small bag of wild blackberries. Frozen and frost-covered, waiting for their chance to escape and become something bigger in this world.

I empathize all too much.