I’ve been reading, well that is a lie. I’ve been listening to the book Tom Lake by Ann Patchett (read by Meryl Streep). The book takes place in a family orchard, where the mother of three is telling her daughters a story of her past romance with a now-famous actor, while they pick cherries during the first year of the pandemic.
There was one tiny little part that hit me hard when I was driving from one real estate appointment to another real estate appointment this week. It wasn’t even an integral part of the story so I couldn’t even find the quote online. It was simple and it was something like this:
While picking the sweet cherries in the orchard, you can only focus on picking the cherries of the branch in front of you, because if you were to look out and see all the rows of trees dotted in red, and how many cherries there are left for you to pick, you’d go back home and get back into bed.
I rewinded to listen to this part a few times. I wish I remembered the time it was said or the chapter it was in, but I was driving so I had other things to pay attention to and couldn’t write it down or bookmark the page since I don’t have the physical book.
But this quote.
This is the overwhelm I feel sometimes when I have so much to do. When I keep looking up at the whole row of trees, the whole field, the whole damn orchard. And then the swirl of feeling overwhelmed begins. The brain swirl.
I know, trust me, I know and understand that I can only look at one branch, I can only pick the cherries on that branch, but I often still look up. And when I look up, I often go back home and get into bed (aka give up on my to-dos, even the ones I like and want to do, and do nothing instead). Or sometimes I will just run from one branch picking a few, then to another one, then to another row, and burn myself out.
And if I just go back home, because I am so overwhelmed by all the cherries left to pick, it isn’t a peaceful rest. It is a rest full of guilt. I am haunted by the orchard, the delicious unpicked cherries I let sit in the sun and rot. It is a rest haunted by the stories my brain loves to replay for me: that I can’t focus, that I can’t get things done, that I never finish anything, that I am not productive enough, that I never do enough.
My true self, deep down, knows that none of these stories are true. When I catch myself and take a deep breath, soften my shoulders, jaw, and forehead, when I come back to center, to present, I know the truth. That is just my thoughts swirling, and I know that even if I accomplished more than anyone in the world ever has accomplished in one day, my brain would still try to tell me that it wasn’t enough, there was more work to be done, and the to-do list would grow.
And life doesn’t stop. The to-do list doesn’t end. After the next big event, weekend, or whatever future date we choose, we say that things will calm down, but they don’t. Life keeps happening.
I know that all I can ever do, all any human can ever do, is one branch at a time. Really one cherry at a time. That is it. Baby steps. Simplify. Slowing down and being present within our life, exactly as it is in this very moment, yes this one, right here and now, and not in 5 min, tomorrow, next week, or at some date in the future.
Baby steps for everything. That’s all we can do.
Lovely read and definitely a great reminder to not get caught up in overwhelm! Thank you 🫶