There's this fig tree outside my apartment.
In the front yard of the building, easily viewed from my living room windows, the fig tree over time has wrapped itself around one of the palm trees that also graces the yard, amidst all the other beautiful bushes and trees that our building is privileged enough to have.
(I do, after all, live in a desert—having this much greenery around me has been so nourishing to my soul!)
But I didn't always realize it was a fig tree. I didn't even think to consider what kind it might be until our first full summer here, when my partner and I saw people walking by and stopping at the tree. They'd peer up into the leaves, touch the branches, and often would pull something off of the tree...we couldn't make out what it was, but after enough passersby had stopped to investigate it, we decided to make an effort to go out and look ourselves.
We quickly realized that it was, in fact, a fig tree, and neighbors were delightfully picking figs, usually biting into one as they continued on their way.
Honestly, my first thought was curiosity—how do so many people seem to know exactly what fig trees look like? Person after person would immediately slow down and then stop upon seeing the tree in the yard, and wouldn't hesitate to take part in the abundance of fruit.
But my second, and now more lasting, thought was: what a beautiful thing to get to witness outside my window, over and over, for a month or two a year.
I truly love the boldness with which people pass by a tree that clearly "belongs" to an apartment building, choosing to pick some figs from it as though it was on common land.
Collective, communal living challenges the ideas of private property and ownership. It reminds us that our own individual wellbeing is not separate from the health of the Whole, and that fences, property lines, and the prioritization of money can often skew the reality that none of us really can own our surroundings.
Instead of an exploitative approach, what if we were to acknowledge the ways in which our relationship with our surroundings (plants, nonhuman animals, human animals, water, earth, air) can be one that is more harmonious, balanced, appreciative, and kind?
What if we were to recognize that we all belong to each other, rather than use a constructed hierarchy of ownership and servitude?
What if we were to acknowledge the ways in which plants, nonhuman animals, and the earth all care for us as much as (or, really, more than) we take care of them?
How might this shift our actions, our feelings? The way we care for ourselves and for others?
What would change in our daily lives? What would be altered in our larger systems?
I love being able to see people walk by my building, grab some figs, and go about their days. Even though I'm a renter and had no say in that fig tree being planted, it still feels like I'm part of something.
Watching the tree continue their intuitive, seasonal process, and witnessing how that process can nourish and delight those who stop and take notice.
It's a joyful reminder of how we can care for ourselves and for those around us, simply by leaning into our own intuitive processes and gifts, and by celebrating the interdependence we all are honored to share with one another.
A story about a tree