The Apricot Tree or Letting Go, Forging Ahead

We can't know what's meant to be until we look back.
​I wonder if the young apricot tree I took from Pierce College is a sign.

Last May, after 10 years on Gilmore Street, we had to move. The owner wanted to sell the house. Leaving Los Angeles wasn't the plan but our best choice was out in the fields of a small town a short distance from the reach of L.A., Moorpark. Fields of nursery farms and lemon trees was never a destination but the moment we stood looking around at nothing but space and green, hearing nothing but birds and wind in the trees, we knew - good bye city life.

About that apricot tree... Year after year after year Pierce College was a favorite for dog walks. So many, so many weekend mornings, walking through the tall trees, past plants with unpronounceable latin names.
​Pilot, then Jimmie and now Rosie, all shared long walks there with me. Past the soccer fields, past the huge parking lot that hosted weekend car shows packed with the pride and joy of dozens who popped the hoods, revved motors and circled around at 5mph showing off chrome and metal magnificence, across a large lumpy patch of green, on to the building that could be walked though and water fountains to sip from.

What brought me back week after week, the special place that I still love, is the now abandoned horticulture department.
​A nursery where no more will be born. A long low stucco classroom building is quiet and forgotten. A tile roof, missing tiles. Small hot houses with broken window panes, a gardening shed still housing simple tools waiting for someone to get to work.

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Dr. Macota's Mycology office - the study of fungus

In Memory of our bright light Russ Livingston

The botanical garden is a jewel still shining. Tucked into a far corner, it sits while time has its way with her.
​Strolling in the quiet, watching the light, drinking in the colors. I always felt a mix of hurt that no one takes care of this rare find and gratitude that rarely is anyone there to interrupt my musing. 

​My appreciation for its purposely designed collection of trees and plants includes its completeness; metal informational stands line the walk, some now missing plates with their story in braille and type. Then there are the groves of palm trees and eucalyptus. Deliberate and planned? Legacy trees? Early valley inhabitants staking out turf long before there was ever a Pierce College? 

What hurt most was seeing a locked ​wire hutch, seedlings left untended, plantings in their black plastic containers neglected, parched, trees outgrowing their buckets, leaning or toppled over with no one to push back upright, all left to slowly die. The beginnings of gardens, gone to waste, left to wither away. Fighting my sadness I took as many as I could find a place for at Gilmore Street.

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Then Moorpark happened and I had a mission. So many left behind in black plastic pots, never meant to contain their whole life. But today 8 lavenders are putting their roots down, no longer fogotten, they line our dirt driveway nearest the house end. And there's a Japanese maple that reminds me of mom, I think she felt it was slightly rare so two were planted at Steele Street.

 And that apricot tree, and destiny. I don't like apricots but there it was, trapped in a bucket, every branch all dressed up in pink blossoms, calling out "take me too". She's in Moorpark with her friends now. I harbor a hope that one day not too long from now, there might be a place for me at Apricot Lane Farms. 'The Biggest Little Farm' isn't far from here.
​www.apricotlanefarms.com/biggest-little-farm/?v=84de8e2b14bb
Who's to say the universe wasn't guiding me when my pretty in pink tree caught my eye, 'apricot is in your future'. Stranger things have happened.