Maine cultivated blueberries and fresh farm milk. PHOTO BY LILLIAN LAKE

Brrrr! There was a chill in the air this morning. Pumpkin-spiced everything has begun. If you’re a long-time reader of this column, you know I am not a pumpkin spiced anything fan unless it includes the word “pie,” and then be sure you also have fresh-from-the-farm whipped cream to top its wonderful gloriousness.

I am still in the depths of the blueberry season.  Last weekend, cultivated blueberries were not as plentiful, and I doubt we’ll get one more picking. However, I have a few pounds in the refrigerator, and with a lovely helping of Jersey-rich milk, I’ll get a few more mornings of imbibing in a large bowl of berries right along with my coffee.

Do you know of the book Blueberries for Sal? Robert McCloskey did a wonderful job capturing a mother and daughter outing one summer Maine morning as they ventured out to pick wild blueberries. This book is part of a series about Sal and her Maine adventures. I remember when I was a child, morning always seemed full of hope, especially in the summer when I couldn’t wait to eat my breakfast out on the deck, smell the surrounding forest, and gaze dreamily out at the lake. The new day to hold me, to claim me.

Memories are a valuable tool. When we remember something, we claim past ideas and give them meaning. Memory is an idea. We put a lot of stake in memories. When we can’t remember something, we experience anxiousness, as it seems to single out a change in our well-being.

We need a different view of memories. We should not hold them with such a firm grip. It isn’t that our memories are wrong or misperceived, but that when we become steeped in memories, we lose sight of the present moment. We cling to ideas that aren’t true, but we claim them as truth. Things like we are not loveable, or our father was a certain way, so we are that way. We do this as individuals and collectively, as evidenced in historical writing and present-day decisions. Our consciousness imprints them on the moment we are in.

As I ate my blueberries this morning, my memories carried me back to picking blueberries with my mother and grandmother. My grandmother sat and watched us pick berries, no doubt reflecting on memories made with my grandfather. She enjoyed watching and riding to the fields. I enjoyed the berries fresh or as pie. My memories informed my eating experience this morning; each bite was perhaps sweeter than it was, as I recalled from previous summer Maine days.

We are gifted with the present moment, which is all we require. Everything else, ideas in the form of memories, is an attempt by our past self to claim control and victory over our present self. We need memory, but not the misperception of memory. We are not our past and should not allow the past to inform our present. All is supplied at this moment. We are not reliant on history.