Permission to Share

Hello friends,

Years ago, writer Starhawk penned a novel in which city neighborhoods had fruit trees growing on the sidewalks, so anyone who was hungry could partake. It was a beautiful vision of a world we could live in, if we chose to.

I now live in a city neighborhood with fruit trees growing on the sidewalk. Pear. Apple. Plum. Fig. Cherry.

But, more often than not, the fruit falls and rots on the concrete in the sun. This happens unless the person who lives in the home near the tree gathers the fruit and puts a sign on it, inviting people to take and eat.

Why is this? I sometimes wonder. There are unfortunately plenty of unhoused neighbors here, along with people I know must have food insecurity sometimes, especially as grocery prices have risen precipitously as a result of farm workers being kidnapped, caged, or deported.

Then I realized a few things:

One, people may not know the fruit is safe to eat. Okay.

But mostly, I think people are afraid of taking something they think is not theirs. Despite the fruit growing freely, unfenced, in the open, it must belong to someone, right?

Despite outright theft at larger levels, on the small, it is ingrained in us to not steal. To not take without permission. Sometimes, that is a good thing, but other times? We are left with ripe fruit rotting away.

We must give each other permission to share, on both sides of the equation. If there is bounty on offer, we must say, “Please, come and eat!”

And if we have something to offer, sometimes we feel to shy to share on our own, until someone else says, “Hey! I’d love to see what you’ve been working on. Will you show me?”

Which side of the equation are you on right now? Do you have something to offer that you feel too timid to share? Or do you see something you’d like to partake in, but have felt too scared to ask?

This week, I hope we give ourselves more permission and soften some unnecessary boundaries. We just might all be the richer for it.

Best wishes — Thorn