song lyrics and unripe nectarines

these were the fluffiest marshmallow clouds against a pure blue sky,
a pure maynard dixon painting

a few weeks ago i was rushing through walmart (ugh) and as i ran past the produce i saw an entire crate full of nectarines.  walmart produce has yet to impress me over the last decade, but during summer i can not, will not, pass up peaches or nectarines. the fruit of the gods i tell you what. none of them smelled or felt ripe at all, but our kitchen warms up quite nicely in the summer and is the perfect fruit ripener if you know what i mean. i brought home a bag bursting full of them. in the next few days most were gobbled up, one by one, leaving trails of yellowy orange sticky juice around the tables and chairs and countertops.

after the best ones were devoured, one of the little ones would bring me the same rock hard nectarine and ask if it was ripe. day after day the same answer, "nope, not yet". the funny thing is, it never ripened. after an entire week had passed, which was ample enough time on our fruit platter to turn a green peach into the juiciest one you have ever eaten, this nectarine still felt like a baseball. i let a few more days go past, and a small outer layer, almost 1/4 inch thick softened. but the insides? bedrock. 

i imagined this to be much like life. sometimes we jump the gun, we rush towards what we want and how we want it. instead of waiting and ripening our talents, knowledge, mind and heart, we let circumstances pluck us off weeks, months, years too early. we never use the god-like attribute of patience, i hardly know if any children even know what patience means now. we rush, run, collide, drop and push to what we want and when we want it. and when that happens, the fruit of our labor never quite ripens. it doesn't make that sweet heavenly aroma, it doesn't slightly give when you squeeze it, it isn't full of the most perfect potential. it doesn't burst with delicious fruity flesh juice as you devour it. it gets a little ripe, but the center of it, the real meat of it, is hard and stale and worthless and inedible.

on the other hand, for the majority of the time we don't wait long enough for a project or undertaking to fully ripen. we bail because it is just taking too long and seems like it will never work out. we quit because, heaven forbid, it is too hard. we want the easy route. we want to fit in, we don't want to stick out holding on and working on to something that is different, undesirable by the masses or doesn't even look like fruit at all.

 i might be the only person alive who understands this analogy, but it is truth for many things in my life over the years. i'm thinking a lot more about patience today and developing my spirit, mind, body and heart, and letting time ripen everything till it is right. even if i don't enjoy being patient.

in other random news, i sat in church yesterday and thought a lot about songs that i love now that i absolutely hated as a child. the slow songs in the musical that i would just skip right over. yawnfest, every single one of them. you know what the funny part is? I will tell you. now those are all of my favorite songs. so of course, i made a little mental note of a few so i could remember:

climb every mountain- sound of music 

empty chairs at empty tables- les mis 

sunrise, sunset- fiddler on the roof 

somewhere- west side story 

There's a place for us, 
Somewhere a place for us. 
Peace and quiet and open air 
Wait for us 
Somewhere. 

There's a time for us, 
Some day a time for us, 
Time together with time spare, 
Time to learn, time to care, 
Some day! 

Somewhere. 
We'll find a new way of living, 
We'll find a way of forgiving 
Somewhere . . . 

There's a place for us, 
A time and place for us. 
Hold my hand and we're halfway there. 
Hold my hand and I'll take you there 
Somehow, 
Some day, 
Somewhere!