Picking the Flower-Fruit

Saying thank you to 2022

Strawberry picking is the closest I have felt to foraging in the woods, second to living it vicariously though the literary world. In this farm, several wooden pillars hoist up a white canopy, allowing soft, gentle light to bathe the entire place while protecting these precious strawberries from the unpredictability of an ever-changing climate. They are lifted up above the ground, coconut husks and soil tightly wrapped in what looked like plasticky polymailer from the packages we get on our front door, bursts of green peeking out from wherever there are cut outs. As I move through disciplined rows of hydroponically grown strawberries, my eyes trace each flash of crimson red, hoping to catch shades that are worthy of the hefty 44RM that we had paid for to fill a box. I thought it ironic that gathering, as a practice that was once key to survival, was now a fun activity that we were willingly handing over money to do. While in Cameron Highlands, I guess. I wrapped my cardigan around me a little tighter, it was slightly damp from the high levels of humidity up in the lushly forested mountains.

I love the mountains. There is something about the air that makes every breath feel rejuvenating, like it is both the first and last breath you’d ever draw. It makes the worn out gears of the spirit whir again, lines of blinding white slowly spread throughout each sinew of muscle until your body feels whole, and your mind, at peace. My body and mind have been waging a war with me since 2019, and although I have slowly crawled out of depression with a lot of help over the years, it is still rare to find crumbs of moments like this where the puzzle pieces feel like they fit. Being on higher ground makes you feel like the world is simultaneously smaller and bigger. It makes you gain perspective about what is truly most important in this world, and also realise that you would never be able to learn all of the lessons it has to teach.

I felt my steps become slower as I moved to more slippery terrain, and by that I mean recently washed concrete floor. I pretended to be a seasoned forager in a David Attenborough narrated documentary, paying attention to every little curvilinear line the strawberries plants playfully draw in the air. It was in slowing down that I noticed, blending in the sea of green that backgrounded the boastful red, little flowers with a yellow center and a skirt of white petals around it, with even more jagged-edged leaves circling them like a fortress. And right beside them, buds that have swelled into a beautiful yellow-green, with a few shriveling petals barely hanging on to its tip. The latter was a new image that I had never come across before. I was used to seeing strawberries in its bright red fruit form, and always assumed that the flowers were a completely separate part of the plant. It never crossed my mind that they were one and the same. Somehow, we have a habit of hiding what is in between, what we cannot articulate. It was there, beckoning me to take a closer look, a neither fruit nor flower that wasn’t a hybrid and yet, you knew exactly what it was without a name.

I didn’t know what made me stop so long to look at it. This strawberry was not worthy of my 44RM box. It was unripe, sour, and probably has no ability to grow into another plant to increase the survivability of its species. To pick it was to officially render its potential, untapped. All of its hard work would have amounted to nothing. And yet, I found myself painfully relating to its in between existence.

In 2022, I have had to make a lot of difficult choices. Expensive choices. Choices that may have cost me stability in an increasingly competitive world. A more comfortable life for my partner and I later down the road. They took me weeks of asking, breaking down and slow, reluctant acceptance to finally make, but I had to for the sake of my declining health. And when I finally made them, it felt like I was losing a part of my identity while not feeling like I had gained footing in another, like a sack of soil with half composted coconut husks.

In choosing to pick the flower-fruit, I had also become a flower-fruit.

People ask me, was it worth it? And I confidently say yes. I can see the wariness that flashes across their eyes, and I don’t blame them. On the surface, I had chosen to cut short the life of something that may have bloomed into something rich, something that could have been shared. If I had left it there just a smidgeon longer to ripen, its value would have increased ten-fold. Shiny red things catch the eye more easily, after all.

But I think of it more as an opportunity for compost, nourishing the next seed that springs into life. I love soil and fungi for that reason, it takes death and decay and knows exactly how to bake it into the perfect womb to nurture whatever is meant to come next, something we humans are still trying to figure out. Sure, I had given this flower-fruit my time, my water and sunlight, but it was growing on bad soil. It didn’t matter if it would have grown into a full blown strawberry, it would still taste bitter in the mouth of whoever bit into it. The risk, in this case, is that there is no guarantee that the next strawberry that grows will be as big, or as red. But I know that it will definitely be sweeter.

There is a lot of pressure in today’s society, to define who we are. What our work is. To be able to find an elevator pitch catchy enough to compete in the attention economy. But the flower-fruit doesn’t care if other people can define what it is or not, it simply is. If its picked, it will serve as compost. If not, it will take its sweet, sweet time to grow into whatever shape of blob it was meant to be. The strawberry doesn’t scream at the urban forager, “pick me!”, or wave frantically at the curious onlooker with its little imaginary hands. Every berry lets fate come to it, like water running down slippery rock. Whether it is eventually picked or not, no matter at which stage of their growth, would inevitably serve out a greater purpose than they would ever know individually. I find it comforting to know that our own existences are valuable no matter if we can participate in the barter and trade of the world.

I thank the flower-fruit for its timely wisdom, and imperceptibly, I think it gave a little nod back.