07 September, 2017

 

“The Fruits of my Labors!”

 

Hey JoJo….What an incredible way to start my day!! (ha,ha,ha,ha,ha)  I certainly didn’t expect, and was very surprised to receive the early morning (stroke of midnight to be exact) phone call from you making you the very first to wish me a Happy Birthday!! (smile)  I think that it set the tone for the series of calls and e-mail messages that flowed my way throughout this morning.

 

It’s now only 10:04AM, and I’ve just been gratifyingly inundated with kind well wishes from a number of the really great people I’ve had the privilege to be able to call my friend over the years!!  As you know, every morning Tanuja and I have what I call our “morning commute conversation(s)”.  Yesterday morning she hit me with a phrase that I had never heard and I found it really cool to be able to affiliate with the fruit(s) that I have in my collection.

 

Quite a few years ago I was in the habit of giving a crystal apple as a gift to someone whom I may have struck up a friendship with.  Along with that gift I would say to them something like, “meeting you planted the seed that bore the fruit of friendship!!’  It’s a gesture that’s been well received over the years, and it’s now been a while since I did that.

 

After the apples, I would run into such items as a pear, a peach, a strawberry, a really nice crystal clear cluster of grapes (which is pretty rare I think), a small bowl of cherries,  and I got a couple of pineapples as gifts that I include in the “Fruits of my Labors” theme.  However….

 

I don’t remember exactly what the topic of our discussion was, but at one point Tanuja said “….the juice was not worth the squeeze!!” and I loved it. (ha,ha,ha,ha)  Right away I told her that I would love to find a way to incorporate that maxim into what would be an interesting interpretation that could be affiliated with my glass.

 

We could get rather cerebral, and interpret the bowl of fruit shown here to represent the various “flavors & facets” (if you will) of people, places, events and experiences that one encounters as one travels their life path.  The “squeeze” that might be the energies and / or efforts spent in the hope of having those experiences bear “the sweet juicy taste(s) of happiness, fulfillment or success”, may not always be realized as some of those “squeezes” may bring forth “the sour juices of unhappiness, pain, hurt, or despair.”

 

Maybe it’s in the exercise(s) of “squeezing” that we learn so much more about ourselves, who we are….what we’re made of….what our values are….and possibly who we would like to be!! Maybe the “squeeze” we exert on others can reveal to us the people who truly should (or should not) matter to us as significantly as we may have thought!!

 

The fruits of one’s labors should (hopefully) bring forth results that serve to enhance or enrich their lives in some way.  Jodie….you have come to represent to me the “sweetest, most abundantly juicy fruit of happiness, success and fulfillment” that any father could have ever hoped to have “squeezed out of the many labors at which I have toiled in my life!”

 

When it comes to me being able to speak to people about you, I’ll have no hesitation in declaring to them that “The Fruits of my Labors resulted in a beautifully tasty juice that was every bit worth the squeeze!!”

 

Oh yeah…the Ladybug….I found her at a different time and thought it would be cute to add just a splash of color to the fruit bowl!!  Whenever I wash these pieces, the Ladybug always ends up in a different spot!! (smile)