I didn’t expect to get so emotionally wrapped up in a blueberry bush.

This is our first summer in the new house and for the first time in a long while, we’re staying–not pausing or landing temporarily. Staying.

And because we’re putting down roots here, I’ve become deeply invested in the garden.

So I’ve been out in the yard, nurturing a decades-old blueberry bush that hadn’t been cared for in years. It’s taller than the garage it’s nestled next to, and honestly–it was one of the selling points of the house. That and the ocean view.

I’ve always dreamed of having berry bushes, ever since our stint in Alaska when we’d go wild blueberry picking (minus the bears, of course). So this spring, I pruned it, watered it, and talked to it, telling it what a lovely blueberry bush it was and how proud I was of it already.

And I got attached–to the idea that maybe, this year, it would bear fruit again.

So when it became laden with green berries in June, I was thrilled. But that excitement was short-lived when I realized we’d be leaving town right as they were supposed to ripen.

I didn’t realize how much I’d been looking forward to those blueberries. The idea of growing something–and getting to harvest it–was bringing me a kind of quiet, anticipatory joy.

In the past, I’ve always been able to grow vegetables during summer, but we never stayed long enough for berries or fruit to really take hold.

And when you move every two or three years, you start to hold everything–even joy–a little loosely.

You plant things knowing someone else will likely benefit from them. And over time, you start to believe that’s just how it is – that you’re destined to live in a kind of Seven of Pentacles season:
Always in the tending. Never in the harvest
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So when I stepped outside on July 3rd and saw that the fruit had ripened early, I probably squealed. I grabbed the ladder and harvested my very first pint of blueberries from the yard.

And, as I was picking, I realized something:
​I’ve spent so much time expecting things to not go to plan.​
Not because I’m pessimistic–just because life has trained me to expect the unexpected.

It never once occurred to me that the berries could ripen early. That it could work out in my favor. I didn’t even realize I’d been looking through glasses built from the past.

I’ve lived in the in-between for so long, I’d forgotten what it feels like when something arrives. When something just… works.

And that’s the gift I’m sitting with.
Right now, in my garden and in my life, I’m planting seeds with the expectation that I’ll be here to see them grow.
That I’ll stay long enough to harvest what I’ve tended.

Because while yes–the Seven of Pentacles is part of the path–so is the Nine.

And I think we forget that when we’ve been waiting for what feels like forever… weathering droughts, too much rain, not enough sun.

So if you’re living in a long stretch of Seven of Pentacles…

If you’ve lived through loss, transitions, and unfinished chapters…

Tending, investing, wondering if the payoff will ever come…

Remember this: the Nine still exists.

‍The lush garden. The moment of harvest. The part where it’s yours. It still exists–even when it doesn’t feel like it does.
And when things do ripen for you, I hope you recognize it for what it is–yours.

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