On my trip to England, I made a point to visit Canterbury Cathedral. The vaulted ceiling and gorgeous history haunted me, soaring in my memory when I tried to sleep.

But it wasn’t the architecture that drew me. 

Of course It was because of Chaucer. That jester poet who marked a line in path of the Norman noble courts of Britain and forever carved his name with The Canterbury Tales.

Chaucer took the tropes of his day, all the characters that his audience were so familiar with, and let them speak English to one another as they pilgrimaged to the cathedral.

Not the snooty French of the nobility and their sycophants—the language of the people who hadn’t gotten that far. The characters poke fun at each other with stories they’ve learned. 

Tonight I joined a book discussion of this story. What did this book still have for us today?

It was a challenge to make it to the zoom meeting because my daughter had only the night before had the vomits pretty bad. I’d stayed up to soothe her, but I had missed out on the reading. 

A sick pitiful pool of a child, she felt better but was weak and in need of company.

A perfect time to read aloud that last section of the book that was assigned. I need to do it and she’s not in a position to resist.

I warned her that it was bawdy and naughty, which intrigued rather than alarmed her.

And we began the Reeve’s tale. I pointed out the double entendres, and we puzzled out some of the more confusing story points. 

For being such high literature, the tales have a lot of primitive humor. 

Farts, fooling and carnal relations

Oh

Chaucer is perfect for teenagers.

I’m going to go read the rest of it.

I started a new job October 1^st, which is my eighth position since 2020.

I have experienced many different work environments. You can imagine I was trepidatious before I met my new team.

Would they be the kind that hoard information? My field—Information Technology—has a stock character of the tech who hoards his knowledge. This guy has to keep information to himself and not share it with anybody. Seems like he is sure that his job depends on being the only one with the code or the password.

I worked with this guy once. He was so sure he had to be the only one with the codes, even for the systems I was responsible for that he changed the codes on my systems when I wasn’t looking.

I’ve had the manager who didn’t want me there, because her boss  hired me to document the processes so we could be more predictable and efficient. 

Write down her secret knowledge?  I recall her long fingernails drumming on the meeting table as I talked with the team to get the details lined up. 

THRUMRUMRumrum

THRUMRUMRumrum

After months of redirections and misinformation, I created a 200-item flow of information. I was fired that afternoon.

Top performers want to hire top performers. Mid performers want to hire people who won’t make them look bad. I have been underestimated so many times by managers who think I will be mid.  It confused me my sensible solutions were received with delight by my teammates. Then time would pass and the manager fired me. 

I learned not to fear getting knocked down. It hurts, but I do better getting back up as quick as I can.

The office I’m in now is a city job. They are long termers and very used to each other. They even seem to like each other. I’m feeling good about it. 

But they warned me: the holidays are coming and the potlucks are epic. 

They are looking forward to what I will bring.

I have three fruit trees:
A lemon tree, a mandarin tree, and a pink orange tree. I cherish them all, and fawn over their flowers and fruit.

I’ve learned that the mandarin tree will rotate in fruit. One year, it will bear a lot of fruit, and the next, far less. Last year was a low fruit year. In fact, the lowest harvest yet, only ten or twelve.

Last year was a tough year for both of us, really.

But a funny thing happened. I had counted the fruits, waiting for the hard green balls to turn color and show bright in the midst of the green leaves. Then I would have a true count of the number.

And I picked and ate the delicious little fruit.

But some of them were small and didn’t turn orange. That was strange. I thought they might dry up and fall off.

That would have been sad but it happens.

I kept an eye on those green balls. They stayed on the tree as the flowers came for next year’s harvest. And then the flowers became little baby fruit.

And the green fruits stayed on. Like ancestor fruit alongside the child fruits.

They were making up their own timing.

It’s October now. These ancestor mandarins have begun to orange. Not in a hurry. Not all the way and not too fast

.

See that? An ancestor fruit above this years young fruit.

I took a plunge and picked one. It was a real fruit! Yes, a bit dry, but a worthy example of its kind.

There at least as many of these late ripening ancestor mandarins as the whole harvest last year.

I thought I knew this tree. I thought I knew how this world works and what I could expect.
It’s just a little tree, but it made a different choice. I am amazed that such a thing could happen, and I have no idea why.

I’d like to have some kind of wisdom to pull out of this situation. It’s not my wisdom though. My mandarin tree is the mysterious one.

What made the choice to take the road less traveled? The flowers? The fruit? The sun and the moon in the sky? The taste of the water the tree pulled up?

What made these fruits persevere and ripen when it wasn’t the correct time?

Like I said, it’s not my secret. But I did watch the story as it unfolded. I took the time to see the flowers as they were born and speak to my tree. I noticed the fruit as they grew and lived their life.

My part of the mystery and the miracle was taking the time to observe.

To pay attention.

And it was so worth it, to notice. Now I can stand with the strength of my little tree when I have hope for the unexpected and unusual.

I’ve seen it ihappen.