Living on Air

Growing up my mom's diet consisted of meditation and grapefruit; I am accustomed to poverty. There is a grapefruit tree in Healdsburg, on the corner of Johnson, just north of the library. I go to the library on wednesdays as they are open until 20:00. I love libraries, all of them, especially the ones with books and periodicals. I saw the grapefruit tree much earlier in the season, september or october, and mistook it for an apple or pear. Upon closer inspection I find the yellow orbs of a citrus and that the tree us not pomaceous. Ignored, the tree and the fruit continued to hang and ripen, the branches grow heavy under their burden and hang close to the ground. Ten days ago at the grapefruit tree: It stands proud with dark glossy leaves in an empty lot. Liberating pounds of fruit into my grocery sack, I freed the tree of the burden of production without appreciation. There is an abundance of food here, growing and hanging and waiting to be eaten by strangers because most people are too nervous to eat the food that grows in their yard and would rather eat food that comes from a truck. I eat what I find and supplement my diet with the fresh eggs my neighbor gives me for keeping an eye on her goats. Though comfortable with basic survival, I wonder if it will always be this way. I remember back to my father and his liberty to do as he pleased, there is liberty in poverty, time becomes more important, the reality that time is all we really have. Time and love and the abstract idea that there is nothing outside of love and time.