All You Have to Do Is Ask
Discovering that sometimes the sweetest gifts appear when we dare to let wonder lead us.
If there is one thing I know from thirty-three years of life (five of which have been spent as a mother), it’s that there are afternoons which call for a meandering country drive in order to preserve collective sanity.
Drives have always served as a sort of medicine for me. I can recall sorting out some of the biggest heartaches of my youth on evening drives up and down Coast Highway, the humid sea air whipping my cheeks in an effort to wake me back up to myself. It was the catharsis I needed to settle my blazing, bleeding teenage heart that felt things so wholly and deeply.
A month or so ago, the afternoon was calling for a drive, so I loaded my boys into their car seats and we set off for the rolling fields on the outskirts of Portland I’ve become so fond of. More often than not on these drives, something serendipitous happens when I relax into spontaneity, forgoing Maps and following whichever road looks interesting. Earlier this summer, one such drive led us past a hand-painted sign advertising “U-PICK BLUEBERRIES AHEAD”, which I followed like a grandma to a garage sale. It was here that we met a delightful family of blueberry farmers, eager to share their abundance. They were some of the juiciest, most flavorful (you know that true blueberry taste—mm, I’m salivating) blueberries I’d ever had, and we visited several more times before the season wrapped. One visit coincided with my toddler’s nap time, which he gladly spent dozing to the hum of pollinators in the middle of an Oregonian blueberry field. These kids have it good, I tell you.
As if we’re gifted one serendipitous fruit encounter per season, an afternoon drive a few weeks ago led us past a small farmhouse I’d driven by countless times, only this time I noticed its driveway full of trees utterly drooping with pears and apples. Hundreds covered the ground surrounding the tree trunks. I also noticed a small piece of plywood with an even smaller piece of paper taped to it, and flipped the car around to turn into the driveway in hopes it was an invitation. It read: All you have to do is ask. If you do not ask no apples or pears. Come on down were friendly.
As much as I’m a sucker for a sign written by a kid, I felt a pang of hesitation in knocking on a stranger’s door to ask for their fruit (this is where my DNA diverges from my Dad’s). It took my five year old’s encouragement to continue down the driveway, where an older man was working on his tractor outside the shed. He was warm and gracious and chuckled at the sign his granddaughter had made after watching someone pull in, grab a bunch of fruit, and peel out of the driveway like it was a heist. I was grateful I had heeded the wisdom of my son—“Come on Mom, why are you scared? They’ll be nice!”—because he couldn’t have been kinder. The man told us to help ourselves to as much as we liked, and to take our time, which I appreciated, because there is something awkward about gauging the right amount of time to spend gathering produce from a stranger’s property, even if you’ve been invited to (just me?).
Mid-harvest, we were greeted by Belinda, wife to the friendly tractor-repairing man, who approached with a grocery bag to aid in our gathering. She told us these trees had been planted by her husband’s father when he was a child living on the property, and that they typically didn’t yield this much fruit, so they weren’t able to keep up with the season’s bounty. And to think I almost didn’t pull in!
I smiled the whole way home, our nearly-overflowing grocery bag of apples and pears strapped into the passenger seat beside me, filling the car with a joyfully tart and sweet fragrance that I swear couldn’t have been replicated in the same measure on any other day. I made apple butter a few days later, and reserved a few jars for Belinda and the farmer, who I plan to visit soon to thank them again for their generosity.
What struck me then, and has continued to resound in my heart in the weeks that have passed, is how much goodness sits quietly on the roadside of our lives. Abundance, in so many forms, seems to appear when we choose to be brave in big and small ways. When we risk vulnerability for connection, and realize the universe is flowing with generosity, eager to fill up a grocery bag (or ten) of it for you.
The apples in this story didn’t just turn into jars of apple butter—they also became the cover of The Autumn Almanac. It feels fitting, doesn’t it? A book about savoring the season, born from a moment of generosity. You can order your copy here.
P.S. I came across this post on Instagram and loved it—what would you add to the list?
