Remembering my “Blackberry Project”

I started a YouTube channel a few years ago. I called it “Ordinary Holy” and began sharing videos I made about my “Blackberry Project,” which was my plan to eradicate the invasive Himalayan blackberry bushes that had taken over a good part of our property.

Hard to believe that none of those “Blackberry Project” videos went viral!

Not so surprising, actually. I just spent a few minutes looking at some of those old videos, most about two minutes long. Even I had a hard time watching all the way to the end. They honestly were a little boring. I did my best with iMovie on my iPhone, but the editing and lighting were amateur and my narration wasn’t always clear or interesting. I tended to say the same things over and over: “Wow! Look at the size of that vine!”

I had thought it was such a good idea, though! I wanted to document my process of working with the berries, spending twenty minutes at a time, maybe a few times a week, out in the yard with my clippers and three pairs of gloves. I’d take videos of my vine piles to show that an overwhelming project could be manageable, that all it would take was commitment, consistency, and a belief that I could make a difference, even if I spent only a few minutes at a time. I found inspiration from a verse in the Old Testament, close to the end in the book of Zechariah: “Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin.” (Zechariah 4:10, New Living Translation)

I would begin the work. I would document the work. I would share the results. I would encourage my readers (viewers?) to start their own projects that also seemed insurmountable! In the end, I would get rid of those pokey, painful, ugly, annoying blackberry bushes and usher in a regular Eden on my property. The blackberries would be gone and all would be well.

It hasn’t worked that way.

It’s been years since I posted a Blackberry Project video on that Ordinary Holy YouTube channel. I was surprised that I could still find them, that the powers behind YouTube hadn’t jettisoned them.

Sure, I’ve made progress over the years eliminating the blackberry vines. There’s an entire section of the creek that has been freed. I’m proud of that. What I didn’t realize, though, was that the land wouldn’t remain fallow when the vines disappeared. Of course, other things would grow. I guess I assumed that native plants would find their way to the open land, that since I’d done my work, nature would repay me with fields of sweet, natural beauty. I never imagined that an entirely new set of plant problems would develop: annoying sticker weeds and strange grasses.

So that is where we are now. There are fewer blackberries, but some blackberries are still thriving—ferocious, they are—and now there is hedge parsley and other thorny, stickery annoyances.

This is what I need to remember:

Time spent out in the blackberries with my clippers and three pairs of gloves? It was good for me—a kind of peaceful meditation. It’s good for me still. When I was making my videos, I would often start one and share that I wasn’t feeling so good about things, and by the end, inevitably, I’d feel better.

I keep running across a good question in books and in conversations with friends. It’s a simple question, really, especially appropriate for women my age whose children are not home much anymore and who have unfamiliar swaths of unscheduled time: What do you want?

What do I want?

Or put another way: What do I love?

I am remembering how much I loved being out in my yard with my clippers and three pairs of gloves, how I loved dealing with the blackberries.  I loved that more than writing at the kitchen table with my laptop all day Saturday, which is not to say that I do not want to sit at the kitchen table and write with my laptop. But maybe it means that I can try harder to make sure I have time for both.

It is still early on Saturday, not even 1:00 pm. I’m going to call this piece mostly done, or good enough, which gives me time to go outside and see what is going on, to take a long, loving look at the real (with thanks to Jesuit theologian Walter Burghardt for popularizing this phrase). I want to see where the blackberry bushes have made a comeback. I’ll put on my waterproof boots and wade into the creek a bit—maybe even set a timer for twenty minutes and see how much of a trashcan I can fill with blackberry vines.

I won’t worry about videotaping, though. I don’t think I’ll be making any more Blackberry Project videos. The blackberries and weeds are still there, of course. Today, it will be enough to simply be outside in the sun, trusting that it is a fine day for yet another small beginning.