What We Do With The Pits
59th Edition - July 12th, 2025 - Summer stone fruit, America, and perseverance
This year, the Fourth of July felt a little quieter than usual. Maybe not in actual volume, as the fireworks still went off (much to our dog Lucy’s dismay), flags still flew, and grills still fired up. We spent the day at our friends’ camp as we usually do, sitting on chairs in the middle of the peaceful Battenkill River, soaking in the welcome quiet of rural Washington County, New York, and cooking tacos al pastor to celebrate our Mexican bretheren. But underneath the routine of Independence Day, at least in my corner of the US, there was something heavier in the air.
Maybe you can only feel it if you’re looking for it. Maybe that is my own burden. Either way, it presents as a fatigue that has infiltrated so many of us. The headlines, the polarization, the sense that truth itself is up for debate is all contributing, of course. However, the real weariness comes from watching this country wrestle with its contradictions in real time, again and again, with no relief in sight.
On Independence Day in the US, we’re expected to celebrate our country’s declaration of freedom from a monarchy across the Atlantic Ocean rooted in a deep resentment of “taxation without representation” among other oppressive policies. Yet here we are, 249 years later, some of us watching in shock and horror as freedoms of vulnerable populations around us are so clearly and publicly rolled back. We are told to believe in justice, but we see how unevenly it’s applied. We’re told that education is the great equalizer, but we live in a moment where public schools are being sidelined, research is being shunned, books are being banned, funding for the neediest communities is being cut, and educators are being dragged into culture wars that they never asked to be a part of.
It’s hard to know what to do with all of it. How do you love a place that so often and so deeply disappoints you? How can we lead, or teach, or parent, when the very idea of shared truth feels out of reach? When everything feels overwhelming, I’ve learned that the answer is simple. You persevere. You turn off social media. You surround yourselves with friends and loved ones and nature. You keep moving forward. You pursue joy as a form of resistance to despair. For us, instead of patriotic bunting, fireworks, and grilled hot dogs, we spent part of our holiday weekend distracting ourselves by chasing the bounty of the Northeast US in July: fresh fruit.
On Saturday, after spending the day with our friends the day before, we hopped in our car packed with cooler bags and mapped a course through the Hudson Valley and the Berkshires in western Massachusetts, following painted signs to small orchards where the harvest was just right. Ten pounds of sour cherries. Eight pounds of blueberries. A basket full of apricots freshly freed from the branches that bore them, and even some elusive black raspberries tucked into a green paper basket, soft and ready for consumption. It’s exactly what we needed. Picking fruit is quiet and solitary work even if you’re with a group. It’s you and the trees. You search for the ripest berries. You pick what you can carry. In our case, you end up possibly picking a lot more. You connect with the landscape that keeps us nourished and that we so often take for granted.
Holding the Heartbreak
As a result of hauling home 20 pounds of fruit, on Sunday night I sat at our kitchen counter with a cherry pitter in hand. Twist, pop, discard. Over and over again. The rhythm of it was meditative. It was slow, monotonous, staining work, and it gave me space to think. What came to me while sitting there taunting carpal tunnel syndrome, uninvited but extremely pertinent, was a quote from Senator Cory Booker from another lifetime ago in 2018: “If this country hasn’t broken your heart, you probably don’t love Her enough.” If you think about it, loving anything, really loving the reality of it with your eyes and heart open, will inevitably break your heart. This is true for people, pets, careers, and, apparently, countries.
The break is never in a single clean fracturing, but instead comes in small, relentless ways. For people, and pets, it’s physical. You may not even notice until one day you suddenly do. An aged face. A slow gait. An unwillingness to do things that once brought joy. For a country, everything is normal until it’s not. The gap between the promise and the practice is suddenly wider than you remembered. As an educator you hear the words “liberty and justice for all” recited every morning at the end of the Pledge of Allegiance, and then, when you look around at society, you see who gets left out. You see exhausted teachers and students navigating systems that simply weren’t designed for all of them. You see good people stuck in a web of policies that value efficiency over empathy. You try to lead through it, to teach through it, to exist within it, and it still feels like it is not enough. Liberty and justice for who?
This isn’t new, of course. The heartbreak is old. It’s written in invisible ink in the foundation of our American society, like the words “all men are created equal.” But no matter how old it is, each blow feels fresh, landing in the guise of a decision that disregards the humanity of the minority, in shape of another week of silence from those who could do more.
Still, we persevere. What else can we do but stay in the work? We show up to classrooms and meetings. We tend to kids and staff and friends and families. We recognize that this is more than just a difference in politics, but we do what we can to push that aside. We make time for difficult conversations. We fight for inclusive spaces. We explain, again, why representation matters. We absorb the tension between what is right and what is allowed because we believe, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
The Slow Work of Preservation
That night, still sitting at our kitchen counter, I kept going. Pop the pit. Place the fruit in one bowl, the pit in another. Repeat. No one was watching (except Lucy who hoped I would drop a few on the floor). No one was impressed, but the work was necessary. There is no shortcut for the kind of care that lasts. Whether you are leading a school, raising a family, or simply trying to stay steady in a noisy world, the work is slow and quiet, much like the Battenkill River. The fruit doesn’t keep if it’s not tended to right away. What we do today can feed someone tomorrow, and even the pits have purpose. We saved about a cup of them, knowing they can flavor syrups and sauces, add depth to ice cream, and bring about a flavor you just can’t get from sugar or spice alone. They are easy to toss aside, but they can work for you if you’re willing to work with them. That irony is not lost on me.
Meanwhile, it’s tempting to call this moment the pits, isn’t it? The phrase fits. The feeling of being down, worn out, and overwhelmed is sadly way too familiar, but maybe that is exactly why the pits deserve attention. We can ignore them if we’re privileged enough, or we can turn toward them. Facing what’s hard without rushing to sweeten it allows us to make something from the scraps. Sometimes we need to let hard things sit before we understand what to do next.
To be American is to have your heart broken. There’s no easy way around it, but maybe to be able to stay American, to remain engaged and hopeful in a truly difficult time, we must choose what we do with that heartbreak. We can pit the fruit now and freeze what we are not prepared to use until we feel ready, and we can preserve what is worth saving right now by diving in and sharing the work with friends and loved ones. Letting it all spoil after harvesting simply cannot be an option. None of us wants to clean up that mess, and even in a fractured country, there’s fruit to be found. What we choose to do with all of it will shape whatever comes next.
Ok, I’m gonna try to be a shining light with another, different quote: “a more perfect union.”
I don’t in any way, shape, or form think what is happening AT THIS MOMENT, is making us a more perfect union.
I am hopeful however, that as a result of our current turmoil we will emerge as that. If not in 3 years, then 7, or more.
Certainly we are all learning lessons about what we want our country to be. And what we want it NOT to be.
Beautifully written, as always. We have been in search of the quiet and peace that nature brings as well. We are heading to an off grid cabin in the Adirondacks next week for a full week of no computers, TV, or cell phones. Just us, our children, dogs, books, and kayaks. And you are correct, America can indeed break your heart.