The past owners of our home started a modest orchard on the well-sunned slope to the side of the porch. It was intimidating to acquire fruit trees this way, with little prior knowledge. One day I came home from errands to see the apricot tree heavy with fruit. I noticed a few branches were beginning to crack. I picked a fruit from the tree and tasted it. Warm and sweet. Probably ready. I happy-danced back to the house and recruited my oldest son to fill a basket with me; we worked quickly, picking well over a hundred fruit. We could see the thin branches almost thanking us as we relieved them of the heavy burden.
We ate apricots for days, shared with friends, and made our first batch of jam. The fruit covered every inch of counter space. They were small but sweet, nothing like the leathery kind you can buy for cheap. My youngest boy would pace the kitchen and porch with an apricot in each hand: “Mmm.”
After conquering our early-summer spoils, I researched what to do next with the tree: trim back the branches or leave the tree alone for now. I came across a key piece of information about stone fruit (cherries, peaches, plums, apricots). I’d missed it in the earlier days of caring for our adopted tree, a simple tidbit which would have yielded bigger and better fruit. I should have removed most of the fruit before it reached an inch in diameter, only leaving one fruit every six to eight inches. This thinning would have allowed the remaining fruit to grow bigger and not overwhelm the delicate branches.
I rummaged online for more information, and the screen might as well have taunted me: You didn’t KNOW that? How could you not know that? Everybody knows that.
It’s easy to tell a story like that and say, “Oh silly, stupid me.” As if the only explanation of not knowing something yet is being silly and stupid? It’s often a defense I rush to–after a simple discovery.
Somewhere along the way, the idea of not knowing became cause for great alarm, first in those around you: “You didn’t KNOW that?” and then eventually within yourself. It became a reason to hide until you could emerge all-knowing.
We need safe spaces to not know everything. Do you remember a time you freely admitted what you didn’t know? Maybe it was how to use punctuation or what ingredients are in milk or how an airplane flies. Let’s return to that simplicity and acceptance.