This beautifully tended local flower strip is nothing like the bushwhacking terrain described below. No berries are pictured in this story, lest some reader feel encouraged to go nibble on unfamiliar flora.

After early Mass today I took the long way home, through back alleys and hedgerows and office parking lots and other overlooked shrubbery. In the drought-dried foliage there was a fine harvest of the healthiest fruit — wild berries, five different kinds.

Before a-berrying it’s good to tidy the kitchen and clear some space. (One hour of forage adventure means three or four hours of schlepping around the kitchen later. Will those purple anthocyanin pigments ever scrub out of the surface of my tiny countertop? Maybe; maybe not.) At this time of year, here’s what I bring for the trip.

Safety goggles! Put them on before messing with those bushes.

Two one-quart containers with lids that fit tightly. That way any earwigs or spiderlings won’t pop out of the berries and run around one’s duffle bag.

Well-wrapped feet, as padding from underbrush (and maybe ticks). Every day I wear trousers and two pairs of socks and thick felt wraparound lymphedema bandages anyway, so that’s all to the good.

Stick or rod, preferably hooked, to hold thorny canes safely in place. Tongs could work.

Long sleeves and cuffs. Fingerless gloves could be nice.

Small scissors to cut stems when needed. (One of the berry types will slip its skin if pulled, so one has to twist and roll the berry. That didn’t loosen the fruit for me, so I snipped each berry at the stem base.)

Double folded paper grocery bag, for any unexpected bonanza of wild apples. When they rain, they pour.

Finally, a water jar and paper towels, to rinse dried juice off one’s hands.

Then each separate berry type at a time goes right in a punchbowl of salt water, gently agitated to shake debris loose. (Berries are filthy. We’re not back to Eden.) Then they’re lifted out gently with a spoon and laid on a white tray for inspection. Then back in another fresh salt bath. Then lifted out for a fresh bath with white vinegar. Then a thorough rinsing, and into a glass saucepan to stew in their own juices to a boil. Then one can eat them as is, or strain and crush to make juice. It’s a lot of fuss and mess, but next winter there will be berries ready in the freezer.

The city fruit around here goes to waste, drying on the vine or falling on the pavement. No wonder. Who has idle time to spend, to mess up the kitchen or to stand in the sun sticking their hands into thorny canes, or prickle-edged leaves? Pretty much nobody. It takes a while to stand with a soft gaze and wait for one ripe berry to materialize, pick that one, then watch and wait for the next berry to show up in plain sight. One variety ripens in a counter-intuitive manner: the really ripe delicious ones are not at the top closest to the sun, but at the very bottom. That discovery called to mind St. John of the Cross, who wrote that by stooping low one can aspire high to reach the goal.

It’s a very slow martial art, edging around and peering and stooping and crouching and bending. It’s also a good way to meditate; today, it was thoughts about heavy-value milestones.

“Value-heavy milestone” is a made-up term (made up just now, in fact). These are not the rites of passage intended to forge resilient character and conform an individual to society. Instead, these are occasions crafted over generations, to not only support and welcome people through their life experiences, but meant to feel enjoyable in the moment. These milestones come wrapped in stories assuring us that other people found happiness or pleasure in these moments, and therefore (if we play our roles right) we can make them happy times too.

There’s a small complexity here. The same milestone could be all glowing nostalgia and joy and mirth for a majority, and a miserable let-down for someone else, who is then left wondering “What’s wrong with me?” Some folks reminisce with elation all their life long on their own value-heavy triumphs, while the same experiences make other folks want to go rest up behind bales in the hay barn to recover. It would be interesting and potentially beneficial to gather some deeply safe friends to exchange impressions and sympathy around “summer camp,” “birthday party,” “dance recital,” “altar call,” “Christmas,” “graduation day,” and “first kiss.” (The show-stopper is “wedding night”; laden with expectations and demands, it’s a mother-lode of poignant confidential stories from cherished women acquaintances.)

Thoughts of positive occasions that capsized, and their accompanying sad baffled memories, led to a downcast day or two. A very wise friend advised, “Not every occasion needs to be a peak experience. Sometimes pretty good is pretty good.” I said “Sure, but inherently joyful events should not be a vehicle for causing intentional or gratuitous psychic harm.”

Then, the perspective brightened up with a whole new idea. Sure, we’ve all had anticipated occasions that people insisted would be happy, yet turned out all a-glay. But even if we are poor in value-heavy goodness, what if we go seek out and create our own value-light incidents that promise nothing, and then we alchemize them into something good? For instance, a sudden all-night stay in the emergency room two years ago, walking in circles for 12 hours reading the Psalms, attracting all sorts of patients and their stories, turned out to be a beautiful experience of kindness and warmth. So were two cataract surgeries with delightful surgical staff and the care of Captain Wing and Angelina. So was half a day’s layover homeward bound at Dallas-Fort Worth airport in 2014, coughing and feverish and chilled and disoriented and cared for by kindly church ladies and security guards and men in cowboy hats and the Somali cashier at the gift shop.

Some of us have missed out on, or were bowled over by, the normal range of positive milestones. But even for us, life offers a limitless array of new rituals that we can craft for ourselves. They’re waiting in alleys and hedgerows and office parking lots and other overlooked shrubbery, with cane thorns and sharp-prickled leaves, with earwigs and spiderlings. That’s where the healthiest fruit is, if one looks long and stoops low enough.