Blackberry Summer

like manna in the wilderness

Photo by Eric Prouzet on Unsplash

August 2019

“What in the world am I going to do?” I wondered, staring at the “kitchenette” in my little room.

I was 21 years old, and I had just moved across the country from New Brunswick to British Columbia for graduate school.

My school’s campus was situated halfway between Langley and Fort Langley.¹ It was only a ten- to fifteen-minute drive in either direction, but I didn’t own a vehicle, and my notoriously bad sense of direction made me wary of relying on public transit.

If you think apartment hunting in your local city is stressful, try apartment hunting from across the country. I was clueless about the West Coast, and my top priority was to live near campus. So, when I found a fully furnished spot within walking distance from school, I thought I had struck gold.

But as I discovered upon my arrival, there’s a lot that landlords don’t advertise online.

Fort Langley, October 2019

My mother and I flew out three months before my move to tour the university and meet my potential landlords. The couple who owned the house were Christians, which immediately inclined me to trust them. The landlord was a mild-mannered English chap who reminded me of my grandfather, and his wife was a Filipino gal in her early thirties.

The couple rented out fully furnished bedrooms in their home for a few hundred dollars a month. The room I was most interested in required shared access to a bathroom and washer/dryer unit on the main floor, but I didn’t think too much of this.

There were a lot of things I didn’t think too much about, unfortunately.

In my naïvite, I didn’t question why a sixty-year-old man had married a woman half his age or why he requested that I pay my rent in cash.

I didn’t dwell on the fact that this man had a forty-year-old son from his first marriage . . . a son who was old enough to be the father of his half-brothers (ages ten and two).

Nor did I think twice about the fact that most of the other tenants in this building were middle-aged men.

I just wanted to live close to campus.

It wasn’t until after I moved in that these glaringly obvious red flags made me question my decision to sign a year-long lease.

Through the Valley of the Shadow

I know, I know. At this point, you’re probably shaking your head, yelling, “Allana, what were you thinking??”

In my defense, I was only twenty-one at the time, and the only other landlords I had rented from were my former professor and his wife—a sweet, trustworthy couple who attended a Mennonite Brethren church near my university.

Plus, my lease came with food.

If I wanted to, I could opt in for a monthly meal plan featuring two home-cooked meals every day.

For a budget-conscious grad student flying in from the East Coast, this seemed like a sweet deal. It meant I wouldn’t have to buy dishes, pots and pans, or a carload of groceries each week. I could enjoy a fresh breakfast and hot supper every morning and night, leaving only one meal per day when I had to fend for myself.

But let me tell you, friends: home-cooked meals tend to sour in your mouth when seasoned with sexual harassment.

Yup, you read that right.

Within a month, my landlord started making inappropriate comments around me. The first happened less than a week after my arrival. I mentioned in passing that I was single, to which my landlord replied without missing a beat, “Oh, so-and-so [the tenant downstairs] is looking for a wife!”

I laughed uncomfortably and brushed the comment aside, rationalizing it as “one of those things” that older people say to young singles.

But, to my horror, that was not the last remark of its kind. As my landlord’s comments grew increasingly sexual, I realized that I needed to find a new living situation ASAP.

Suddenly, my sweet little find felt like a hell house, and not even my landlady’s homecooked meals (which I quickly took to eating alone in my room) could compensate for my landlord’s disgusting innuendos.

To avoid being in that den of depravity, I spent most of my evenings taking long walks on the campus grounds. There was a series of trails that snaked through the school’s “back forty” (i.e., which, for the record, was definitely smaller than forty acres), plus a walking path that looped around the school pond. I passed countless hours in these safe havens, pacing, praying, and whispering Psalm 23 on repeat:

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside the still waters.

He restores my soul.

He leads me along the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil, for you are with me . . .”²

Walking around the pond during my first year of grad school

Berries in the Wilderness

I don’t know what I would have done that summer without the blackberries.

Amid my other domestic struggles, feeding myself proved to be a greater challenge than I anticipated. Yes, I had some meals prepared for me by my landlady, and I secured a dining pass for the university’s cafeteria, but it was difficult for me to store fresh food in my little kitchenette, which consisted of a microwave, an electric burner, and a mini fridge. The latter barely held a week’s worth of fruit, milk, and yogurt. I had no way of storing meat or other sources of protein, so my diet featured a steady rotation of avocado toast, cucumber sandwiches, carrot sticks, and oatmeal with peanut butter.

Then, one evening during my nightly walk, I noticed a cluster of blackberries growing near the school pond. I plucked a handful from the thorny bushes, amazed by how ripe and juicy they looked. When I popped the first black gem into my mouth, my taste buds tingled with delight.

The berry practically melted on my tongue, its wine-like juices filling my mouth with intoxicating sweetness.

These were nothing like the small, tart, Mexican-grown blackberries my mother bought from Sobeys. This, I marveled, is what blackberries are supposed to taste like.

I discovered blackberry bushes growing all along the pond—and in the fields leading to the Back Forty, all of them bursting with fruit.

After that, I never worried about having enough to eat, even if I was running low on groceries. I simply walked over to the school and feasted on wild berries.

During the two months I spent in my apartment from hell, those blackberries were my manna from heaven, a daily reminder of God’s provision and strength.³

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Stepping Into The Promised Land

Mercifully, the Lord provided another living arrangement for me by the end of September, and on October 1st, I moved into a new house that was (miraculously) still within a kilometer of campus.

Only this time, my landlords lived off-site, and I was surrounded by gals in their mid-twenties who were also pursuing graduate studies.

This new house was much older and my room much smaller, but after everything I had been through, it felt like paradise.

I passed many a happy hour in that house, surrounded by Christian girls who befriended me overnight. We often cooked our meals together, laughing and talking around the dinner table late into the evening.

Thanks to their kindness and generosity, I always had a ride to the grocery store, church, or the airport. I could rely on any of them for a good laugh, a shoulder to cry on, or a prayer partner.

We made some invaluable memories during the few, short months we lived together, from our delicious “potato party” (featuring a buffet of dishes made exclusively from potatoes) to our homemade ice cream experiment (made with snow from our backyard).

Left: sweet potato pie / Right: homemade "ice" cream

Though life has since scattered our little group across the globe, those girls remain some of my dearest kindred spirits, and whenever I think of them, I am reminded of a season of friendship that was sweeter than blackberries.

Post-script: August 2024

Five years have passed since my first summer in British Columbia, and I have yet to taste a blackberry comparable to the ones growing wild and free on that university campus.

“And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:19 NIV)

1. Fort Langley is a popular filming destination for Hollywood productions. Its iconic yellow town hall has been featured in numerous films and TV shows, including ABC’s hit series Once Upon A Time and the 2003 rom-com Hope Springs starring Colin Firth (among other things).

I ate gelato outside that town hall once.

2. Psalm 23:1-4

3. For full context concerning the biblical story of manna in the wilderness, please read Exodus 16.