Picking

One of my favorite summer activities is picking fresh fruits and vegetables. I am no farmer--I don't think I could grow the stuff if I tried. But take me to a "pick your own" farm, and I am happy for hours.
 
Would that all the "picking" we do in life be as straightforward as the picking of produce in a field. You see, when picking at the farm, once you learn which plants are which and what "ripe" looks like for any given fruit or veggie, it's really just a question of reaching or bending to get what you want.
 
In life, there's plenty of reaching and bending. The difference is, "ripe" tends to be much more subjective, the reaching often way beyond the length of your arms, and the bending frequently more than you can handle. While the carrying of bags of picked fruit may be hard, it is nothing compared to the baggage we carry along with the choices we make in life. And though we can pick veggies alone or with others, picking in life often ends up being a more solitary endeavor. Anybody can pick ripe blueberries once the "ripe" guidelines are clear. But only we can really know what's right to pick in the rest of our lives.
 
I came home this weekend with bags and containers of yummy produce--and a bit of a bending-and-reaching sore back to go along with them. But the glorious simplicity of the picking--I'll be trying to find that again all week long.