A couple of weeks ago, I completed a challenge where we were to list 10 things that our body does for us without complaint. The purpose was to focus with gratitude on the good that our body does, rather than obsess over our perceived flaws and compare ourselves to those thinner and more beautiful. It actually took some thought and effort to come up with those 10 things. I completed the exercise, but didn't really take it to heart.
However, this challenge came to mind today. People saying this is "a cherry year." The cherry trees have all borne fruit in abundance.
Today, I went out with my kids to pick cherries. As I looked at our cherry tree, I noted how large it had grown, full of green leaves and bunches and bunches of ripe red cherries. They were so beautiful, like jewels of deep red sparkling against the green leaves and clear blue sky. I climbed the ladder just far enough to have the bounty in arm's reach. Steadying myself, I looked up into the sunshine and took a bunch of cherries in my hand, stripping the fruit off of their stems with my fingers, and holding them in my palm like marbles. I popped one in my mouth to test its ripeness, and biting down, the sweet juice burst in my mouth. I savored this taste of summer and promptly spit out the pit. I picked for a while, enjoying a conversation with my son and daughter, and noticed the birds chirping along with us.
Then, I remembered the challenge, and suddenly felt such gratitude for this simple hour and what my body had just done for me: eyes that could see the beautiful tree and those beautiful red cherries hanging in bunches, hearing the chirping of birds and my children's laughter, being able to climb a ladder and feel the cherries rolling in my hand, and tasting the ripe cherries fresh off the tree. My body did all of that for me.
It didn't take long to fill our buckets, and I went inside to preserve our harvest. Removing the pits from the cherries was my next task. It was not easy. In the past, we have picked some cherries for eating, but honestly, they usually went to waste, because my kids didn't want to go to the work to eat around the pits. But once the pits are removed, we can enjoy pies and cobblers and mouthfuls of cherries without the pits to contend with. Those nagging thoughts of not being thin enough, tan enough, sculpted enough, or as tall, as young, or as pretty, they are much like cherry pits. It takes work to rid them from our minds. But removing those pits frees me to focus on the abundance of being healthy and enjoying life.
