We ate a type of berry not native to either of the areas we live. We’d both had them before, but there’s something about eating them close to where they grow. I’d been looking forward to them. A couple hours later, we got out of the car to walk near the lake’s edge and saw some berries that looked similar to the ones we’d eaten. Neither of us knew how the berries grew, so it was possible we’d found them “in the wild.”
We did not. How did we find out? Because one of us tasted them. It was not me. Yes, we know not to eat strange berries, but my friend squeezed one just enough to get a taste of the juice. And in her words, it tasted like dirty rags.
Apparently, when you search online for “red berry tastes like dirty rags,” you can actually find out what kind of berry it is. We weren’t the only curious ones.
Sometimes the pretty stuff stinks. Sometimes we get the answers we want and need because of experience, and not every learning experience is enjoyable (although we can often find the humor in our attempts).
Perhaps we could be a bit more cautious with some of the pretty stuff we find.
Pure Purpose 