My plan was to blog about weirdness today. Knowing my weirdness acutely and beginning to embrace it. The afternoon is fine and my neighbor’s mulberry tree beckons and it seems absolute folly to sit here much longer.
So. To make it quick: I have always felt myself to be The Weird Kid. I didn’t eat paste or anything, but I didn’t really speak to anyone either. Not if I could help it.
Right, I’ll just leave this here, since I can’t find one with my hair in Laura Ingalls braids and my astigmatic eyes hidden behind goofy spectacles. And big buck teeth sticking out.
I’ve gotten over my shyness for the most part, which does help in navigating life. I expect a certain awkwardness at parties, is all.
But sometimes today, people look at me funny, say when I’m picking mulberries or juneberries by the roadside, or when I’m down on my knees harvesting weeds for a salad. When someone gives me That Look, I want to say, “Honey, this is the least weird thing I do all day.”
I mean, I sit at my computer and string words together for little to no remuneration.
I move energy around with my hands.
I talk to trees and bugs and plants and streams.
I ground people for a living.
On occasion a client or friend will tell me something sensitive and then ask, anxiously, “Is that weird?”
I say, No. As someone whose whole body will jerk when some invisible energetic shift takes place, I’m uniquely qualified to judge, and no.
Or rather, possibly, but with me, you can be as weird as you are. To borrow a Martha Beck maxim.
To my tribe: Embrace the weird. In weird is our strength.
Now I’m off to fill my bucket with mulberries.
Shawndra Miller 
I’m with you in the Weird! 😝
I suspect I’m in great company!
All my best friends are weird. It helps me feel normal.
Haha, love it!
You speak for me and probably more than you know.
Thank you, Dottie. It seems like a lot of “us” were weird kids.
Around here in Maryland we have a lot of the nonnative invasive white mulberry and not as much as the native red mulberry. Mu Do you know what kind of mulberries you eat? I went for a walk with our friendly botanist who was focusing on nonnative invasives like Porcelain berry which looks pretty and grows super fast but really takes over. I think both mulberry and especially porcelain berry have more than one leaf type.
All the best and welcome to all the weirdness in us
We have a few white mulberries around, but mostly red…that is the extent of my knowledge! Other than the fact that berries from some trees are tastier than others. We used to have a thing called Japanese wineberry growing in a wild area–incredibly pretty and tasty and invasive–but it got cut back and has not returned. Thanks for reading, Samuel!
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