The Freedom to Choose Raspberries
A Birthday Reflection
When I started my business, freedom looked like flexibility.
It meant building a life that bent around the realities of being a single mom: three growing kids, homeschooling rhythms, Scout camps, muddy cleats, and cookie dough on the ceiling. It meant being the one who could say yes to afternoon read-alouds, creek adventures on hot summer days, and homemade birthday cakes.
I wasn’t chasing a brand or a title. I was choosing presence.
Freedom meant being available—for them, and for me—in the life we were living, not the one society told us we should be living.
Now, those kids are grown. And it’s a Wednesday in July—
a Wednesday that just so happens to be my birthday.
Freedom looks different now, but no less sacred.
This morning, I went to the local farmers’ market simply because I wanted to.
I lapped the stalls twice—maybe three times—soaking it all in.
The colors were riotous: cherry tomatoes glowing like garnets and citrine, curly lettuce stacked in soft green waves, baskets of cherries so dark they looked like secrets. I came home with tomatoes and lettuce for our weekly BLTs. New potatoes. A thick-crusted wholegrain sourdough. Cherries. And one cream puff—birthday permission in pastry form.
I chose a bouquet that matched the morning: zinnias and daisies, sunflowers and statice, and wild grasses all tossed together as if they had somewhere to be.
They sit now on my altar, looking like a party thrown by the Earth itself.
When I got home, I wandered out through my gardens—the raspberries were calling.
They’re always ripe in time for my birthday. Ripe berries and fireflies are my yearly reminder that the day is near.
I didn’t plant these berries. The birds brought them a few years ago—scattering seeds in a half-wild corner I never quite tamed. I let them stay. And—between you and me—I’ve encouraged them to spread. They’re my favorite berry of summer. And oh, how they’ve given back: more than six quarts so far this year, all sun-warmed and generous.
I picked a few handfuls. Ate one or two...maybe a dozen but who's counting—while I gathered. Then I sat down by my little outside pond with our outside cat, and it struck me:
This is freedom.
Not the freedom to hustle for more,
but the freedom to tend what’s already here.
Later, I’ll slice the tomatoes, cook the local bacon, and toast the sourdough.
I’ll watch the fireflies fill the garden with magic. Maybe dream a little about what this next spiral around the sun could look like.
But for now, it’s enough to sit with flowers on the altar
and raspberries in the colander.
To take my birthday and let it taste like sunlight, sweetness,
and choosing what matters.
This, too, is sacred work.
What’s your favorite birthday ritual?
I’d love to hear. 💛