In the hot Texas sun I feel the sweat staining the armpits of my borrowed long-sleeved denim shirt from H&M. My red baseball cap that I got as a souvenir from Malta plastered to my damp forehead. Though I stand in the shade I squint, peering up at the bramble above me. 

Beside me Sabella was likewise, albeit maybe a little less sweaty; her pale face flushed with splotches of pink. Rob had said it had been a bad year for the berries, but I disagreed. 

Tens of dozens of small, shimmering black treasures glistened in the late afternoon sun, and the sound of crickets and grasshoppers in the heavy air was amplified from the interior workings of the thicket. The family owns the bramble, perched on the edge of their property, away from the eyes of the neighbors. Regina, the mother, clutches a jumbo-sized tupperware to her chest, dust kicking up from her shoes. Saralai, the middle child and Dreyton, the youngest, are dressed normally, slightly bemused at the sight of the family plus me dressed like we are going into a nuclear war zone in our heavy clothing. Besides Regina, Sabella, Saralai, Dreyton and I each hold a smaller tupperware, which we will fill with berries and dump into the big container. We grin slightly maniacally, ready for the task at hand. The first to fill their smaller tupperware wins.

The thorns of the briar are sharp, but if you work with the bush the beast becomes friend. 

The bush wants the berries gone but heaven forbid if you try to take the unripe fruit. The dry grass crackling under out sneakered feet, the dust faintly billowing up around us, and the dirt-brown grasshoppers leaping away from our feet, we set to work, the reek of the catfish pond that the thicket so precariously balances near fills our noses. The six of us chatter lightly until we find our own spots to work, and then a focused silence falls upon the unit. The sweet smelling breeze, a change from the stink of the pond  is surprisingly welcoming, cooling the sweat upon our faces and dispelling any urges to return indoors. Regina helps Dreyton, the youngest of the Smith family, until he fills his tupperware. 

“First!” He proclaims, sounding a bit like “Fwerst!” due to his missing teeth. Dreyton’s blond hair sticks up slightly in the back, his small hands clutching his tupperware triumphantly.

 I smile, hidden by the thicket of blackberries. The dogs dash around us frantically, eventually running off together into the high browned grass and disappear for awhile before returning, Brodi’s white coat stained slightly yellow. 

We continue working, our hands getting scratched up by the thorns . After a while the little ones have become fairly restless, ready to move on, and Regina’s declaration of pleased surprise draws us running. She gestures into the bush and smiles.

“Look! A garden spider!” She says this proudly, and we all cluster around, looking with a mixture of admiration and revulsion. You can see how you can call them beautiful; long spindly legs and a shock of yellow; intricate webs and delicate feet, but Saralai doesn’t think so.

“Ew. It’s gross.” She states, leaving no room for argument. Regina smiles, and then starts talking to Sarala and Dreyton, telling them all about how important a garden spider’s job is to protect the garden and in the case, the bramble. I moved back to my side, by this time fairly picked clean, slowly walking until I spotted a perfect cluster of berries. But guarding them zealously is another garden spider!

“Ok, that one’s yours.” I murmur, moving aside. I hear Regina’s voice faintly, still talking about garden spiders, and I unwillingly look at the spider with fresh eyes. It really is beautiful, I think, but I don’t reach my hand in for the berries anyways. 

I move on and notice another spider. This one is smaller, but it’s web is larger, and higher up. This time, I summoned my courage and slowly reach my hand in to grasp the shiny ripe berries directly underneath the web. But as soon as my fingers reach to pull the berries from their prickly stem, the spider quivers. I jump, and frantically pull my hand away, rocking the branch and scratching myself on the sharp thorns, in doing so shaking the spider’s web. The spider climbs up higher, trying to avoid the vibrations. I frown, and quickly dart my hand in and pull the berries, then just as quickly retract my hand back and nurse the shallow cuts on my hand. 

That was my fault, I reflected. The spider really didn’t do anything wrong, it was me that moved it. My tupperware full, I move over to where Regina has left the jump-sized tupperware discarded on the ground. I wave away a tiny grasshopper and dump my berries in, looking around for Sabella as I do so. She has gotten bored, but hasn’t quit yet, slowly and methodically picking berries one by one and bickering with Dreyton about something he did last week. I join them, laughing with them until finally letting the lull of the grasshoppers and their voices, combined with the late afternoon heat, relax my muscles. I breathe deeply and let my mind wander. 

I reflected on what Regina had been teaching Drayton and Saralai. That the spiders are beautiful in their own way. It was a truth that I had to admit. Then, I thought about blackberries. How appealing it was that my favorite fruit was so available, so eager to be picked, that the hedge pays us to strip it of it’s ripe berries even if it’s monstrous size is a little off putting. How amazing is that? I returned my thoughts to blackberries, thinking of the cobbler that Rob was sure to make afterwards and once again, I was struck on how magnificent it seemed, these simple pleasures. I had not had a life changing moment; but because of Regina’s simple words about the hidden beauty of a garden spider, I suddenly could see how everything has beauty in it.

 Sabella must have thought I was crazy; me standing next to her, my sneakered feet rooted to the dusty ground, the task of picking blackberries long forgotten. There may have been a slight maniacal smile on my face. But that's alright. That’s what happens when you have known someone for your entire life. You don’t have to explain yourself to them. 

Of course, my realization didn’t last long. The next day the family unit and I went to a water park and I was struck not on the beauty of it, but how slimy the floor was, and how the air reeked of mold and feet and steaming, dirty laundry. Ugly things. But I still keep a piece of that happiness with me, that realization that everything can be beautiful; everything has its own purpose because of a blackberry bush, and garden spider, and a family away from family.

It took me a little while to make another realization. After some thinking I realised how important that monumental event of the blackberry bramble was. I began to see how the spiders could represent something else, not just friendly garden protectors. The spider could represent a multitude of things, but the one that stuck with me most was the idea of undesirables. Un-pretty things.

 I pondered on what those undesirables could be, and eventually came up with that the undesirables weren’t any one thing. They were ideas that were not from the normal mould, something people could have strong opinions on, like Saralai’s declaration of scorn about the spider in the thicket.

 The undesirable were the ideas that dared to be different, for better or worse. They were things that we don’t always like to think about because they can cloud the water, so to speak; complicating our lives and making us think deeply about things that maybe we don’t want to think about. From the point of view of the garden spider, it doesn’t quite know what it did wrong; it doesn’t know why so many others scorn it or fight it, or just remain passively aside as I did. But the spider does know to move when something jostles the web, and the undesirables know that there is danger in speaking up. It almost doesn’t matter what the undesirables are fighting for, the ideals can be positive or negative because it all depends on perspective. 

All we know is the ideas can be considered a stain. But yet, the blackberry bush is still there. The briar is where the garden spiders live; it is their safe haven. You cannot remove the blackberry bramble or be subject to thousands of cuts and gashes. You also would not want to remove the tangle because its fruit is just so sweet. The bush represents the quiet supporters of the garden spiders, maintaining a gentle balance with the people that pick the berries, keeping them at bay, but also guarding the spiders for better or worse.

I remember walking through Cranberry Lake Preserve with my father walking a little ways behind me, as was normal. It had started to rain, but we were far from the car and decided to just keep going since the rain was light. As we walked, the summer air in that moment so familiar from my time in Texas, I admired the glint of water on the leaves. I laughed at the frog that hopped across my path, and smiled at the ugly brown mud beneath my rainboots.  Suddenly, I saw beauty everywhere, if I just looked hard enough. 

“It’s so pretty today.” My dad said, ever in appreciation of nature. My mood suddenly spoiled by him pointing out the obvious, I stalked ahead saying nothing, but I couldn’t stop my eyes from flitting to mossy rock to muddy creek; seeing glints of water, the emerald green of moss, and thinking they really were quite pretty. But I would never admit that to my father.