Soapberries

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In late August, the Alaskan tundra is cloaked with blueberries, crowberries, and pumpkin berries. They burst forth brightly in low-growing, scraggly bushes. It’s nearly impossible to take a step without treading on one. That’s a lucky thing, as bears are hungry in the summer. I hear they can eat 200,000 berries in a day. That must leave them with tender bluish tongues.

The bears have human competition for many of those delicious berries. But the juicy red Soapberry is an acquired taste. Due to a high saponin (read: soap) content, the berry’s initial sweetness is followed by bitterness. Something like quinine, the aftertaste is memorable. I’ve read that the Indigenous People whip these berries into a froth and serve that on desserts—the first vegan whipped topping.

I wonder why I tried this berry twice. I think it was the voluptuous beauty and rosy hue. Aren’t they pretty? While the first sample left me spitting in all directions, my second berry, from a different locale, yielded honey-sweet juice and a tangy burst of flavor at the end. You know how berries can be. One is sweet, and the next is sour.

It pays to try things two or three times, especially if they’re unfamiliar. How can we know what we like when we change with each taste? “Every time you make a choice, you are turning the central part of you, the part that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before,” says C.S. Lewis. And so we evolve together, the taster and the tasted.

We choose our identities. I choose to be one who seeks to understand, who waits for sweetness to emerge. And I choose to try ALL the kinds of berries I believe to be safe. Those are tiny tenets of joy for me.

What are you choosing in this moment? How are your choices helping you become the person you most want to be?