“Our need will be the real creator…” so said Plato. When you need something, when you have a serious problem, then you get creative and work on a solution. It also works when you really want something as a positive motivator but the idea is the same, we don’t start coming up with new ideas, generally, if everything in our life is hunky-dory.

This is the time of year when I talk about squirrels and persimmons, and rather than just staying in lamentation for my lost fruit, this year I have been ruminating on the nature of problems and problem solving. My husband is a professional problem solver, people hire him to help them think about how to do things different, better, faster toward a goal. So when he stood with me in our little orchard and listened, again, to me decry the evil greed of squirrels he did not offer consolation, he offered solutions. We aren’t inventing anything new, the man and persimmon versus squirrel is an ancient story, he was just offering ways that I could do something about the situation rather than brood and hate.

Among the options offered that I rejected: rise before the sun and sit in the orchard with a firearm (I think this might be illegal in our area); sit in the orchard all day with a water gun to deter them (for obvious reasons this is not practical); net the tree. The last is the best option but I said ‘no’ for two reasons: first because the space is not huge so I can’t functionally tent the tree without damaging it, second because I have been bitten trying to free a squirrel from netting previously and the medical regimen required in response is not pleasant. I’m sure I’m not the first difficult client my husband has encountered but I may be the only one to whom he can say, “you just want be unhappy, fine don’t do anything.”

So I find myself again with ripening fruit that makes me smile and then a husk of ripe fruit the following day that fills me with rage. But it occurred to me this year that I don’t have to solve this problem. My family will eat and be housed whether or not the persimmon crop comes in. I can live in a sort of melancholy harmony that longs for the fruit but recognizes I am not the only one who enjoys it. It’s not that I am wasteful, it’s more a sense of awesome abundance and I see it all around me.

Most of us, not all, in this time and place have so much more than we can ever use, and yet most of our lives are spent chasing more of that more. If the survival of my people were dependent on that crop I would not say no to the solutions offered, I might say yes to them all. And this awareness has made me really think about how many people on this planet don’t have this choice, for whom a solution is not a luxury but a true necessity. I have been thinking that it might not be right for me to jump into judgment about the choices that other people make before I take the time to understand what might be motivating the choice.

It is fair to say I don’t need the persimmons, I am clear that I want them. I feel a little entitled to at least a few given that I prune, water, fertilize, and tend the tree. That might not be reasonable but it’s how I feel about the situation. I don’t need all the fruit, the squirrels can have some, I just don’t want them to take all.

So weighing all of the conflicting feelings, assessing the need/want ratio, and being open to the ways in which we really can come up with new solutions when pushed to do so I am going to try something again this year that I am told is impossible. Because of all the time I have spent in the orchard, fretting around the tree, I have observed the many, many unripe fruits that are dropped to the ground after having two test bites taken. Though I am often diligent about picking up the dropped fruit, this year I have left some in the hope that the squirrels would come back to eat that and not what is still on the tree. This year I have watched that fruit ripen, going from a hard green to a soft orange. So I believe that if I am patient and if I pick the fruit with the first blush of color it will ripen in the house. I’m not inventing, or implementing a solution to the squirrels and the fruit, I am trying to recognize my right relationship to where I live, and to invent a better way of seeing for myself.

I’ll let you know how it goes…

“So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all…” -Galatians: 6:9 The Message