Daggy, Blueberries and Kairos

The day before we took Dagmawit for her first outing to pick blueberries, Margie was talking about the buckets we’d carry to gather the berries. Daggy lifted her shirt, rubbed her healthy belly, and exclaimed,”This is me bucket!”

What a day that was. The weather gods smiled upon us, granting us a break in the summer heat. The morning was cool and invigorating. To augment the mild temperature, most of our picking was done in the shade as the bushes we focused on were on the west side of a large oak. The sun smiled down from the azure sky, the moon lingered into the late morning as a pale witness to our activity, and a soft breeze blew from the horizon.

Margie and I were uncertain about how Dagmawit would hold up during the picking. In past years we’ve often spent six or seven hours in the summer sun stocking up for the coming year. In general, even kids who enjoy the idea of this old-fashioned approach to family togetherness grow tired and bored after an hour or so, and we were prepared for that, willing to pack up before our usual haul was reached if necessary.

We needn’t have worried. Daggy took to the work like the picker she probably was back in the Sidama region of Ethiopia, her nimble little fingers gathering berries with the quickness and skill she, in all likelihood, honed as a toddler plucking coffee (buna) berries. She was happily talking and singing as she worked, occasionally imitating the calls of the Bob White that traveled across the openness around us. We all ate freely of the sweet, plump fruit until our fingers and teeth were blue

The ancient Greeks had a word, Kairos, which is a quality of time distinct from the tick-tock, chronological time that we allow to govern most of our lives. Kairos is the experience of time that Sam Keen defines as, “organic, rhythmic, bodily, leisurely, and, aperiodic; It is the inner cadence that brings fruit to ripeness, a woman to childbirth, a man to change direction in life.” I think of it as a glimpse of eternity that breaks through our every day experience.

This morning was bathed in Kairos. The conditions serendipitously converged to create a space for it. Daggy picked so well that after four hours we had, as a team, picked the amount Margie and I took six hours to pick in the past. She collected nearly three gallons by herself, and was in no hurry to leave. Margie wisely suggested that we depart while things were good. The sense of Kairos vanishes when it is forced as any experienced parent can tell you.