The lighting in this shot is what attracted me to take it, and if you look closely you can actually see my shadow next to the shadow of the fruit picker. It looks like I am holding it. I didn’t notice that until now.
It’s Avocado season here in Florida. If you go look at my instagram (links to my socials should be on the right hand side of this screen) you will see pictures of my avocado tree and the fruit I’ve picked from it through the years. It is one of my most cherished accomplishments because when I was 18 years old I took a pit from a store bought avocado, and remembering the instructions my father once gave to my mother long before he passed, I put the pit in a small cup of water using toothpicks to hold it up so that only its bottom is submerged. I then placed it in the darkness of my laundry room and left it for a while.
I remember my excitement when I checked on it a week or so later and found that roots had started to sprout from the pit. Fast forward 10 years, that pit had grown in my yard to be a giant, formidable presence that just left me in awe. It did take a while to bear fruits. The dark green fruits blend well within the leaves of the tree so apparently I hadn’t noticed the fruit growing each year until my lawn maintenance worker told me one day that he saw fruit on the ground every year. The squirrels have a field day.
I immediately bought the picker in the picture above, and every October I have had an abundance of avocados. One season I ate so many of them that I ended up in the hospital with a blockage due to all of the fiber. Crohn’s disease doesn’t take too kindly to fiber. I remember being loopy on medications as they pumped my stomach telling the nurses that it was avocados they were pumping out. They had a good laugh.
I am now 33 years old. The tree is 15 years old. We grew together. We weathered hurricanes and heat waves together. While I know it is just a tree, to me it is much more than that. It is symbolic for the comfort and purpose nature really serves for us humans as we experience imperfect tribulations all around them.
I am hoping to take a picture of myself next to the tree soon. I will need a really wide lens to get its full height. I will post that next to the shot of me with the sprout when I was 18.
My fiancé and I hope to have a new house soon, and my mother will live in this one. The one thing I told her was to make sure she takes care of my tree and allows me to come every October to pick some fruit.
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Until next time, stay motivated and keep shooting.
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We had two avocado trees in our yard when I was a kid in Lynwood, Calif. One of my chores was to pick up the fallen fruit every morning. Not just for us, but if they were left on the ground our Dachshunds would avidly consume them and become enormously overweight
Wow 2 of them must’ve produced a ton of fruit. I get so mad at the squirrels but I guess we wouldn’t be able to eat all of them ourselves anyway.