A Single Cherry Tomato

Every day, when I’m working at my office, I take a break to walk around the block.  I enjoy the exercise, as well as the opportunity to discover more about the neighborhood I’ve worked in for over fifteen years.

On my walk a few months ago I noticed a small tomato plant growing from a crack in the sidewalk.  A few weeks later a single cherry tomato popped out.  Every day after that I looked forward to seeing the small green fruit grow and ripen to red.

I didn’t intend to pick it.  I simply valued its being there until the day I walked by and the cherry tomato was gone – along with the entire plant.  Maybe someone else was taking a walk around the block and found the plant to be out of place.  After all, tomatoes belong in farms and gardens, and should not grow through a crack in the sidewalk of a commercial street, should they?

What do we call a plant that is out of its rightful place?  That’s right, we call it a “weed.”  In the words of Emerson, a weed is “a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.” And what do we do with weeds?  We pull them up and throw them away.

Of course, one person’s discovered treasure may invoke another person’s scorn.  Whenever I walk the neighborhood, I pick up plastic cups, used surgical masks, and paper bags with remnants of fast food, and put them into a trash container.  At one time those objects were useful.  Discarded on the street they became trash, first cousin to a weed.

I’ve thought about the single, out of place, cherry tomato for three months now.  I realize that the days are cold, and the tomato plant would have met its inevitable fate even if it had not been prematurely plucked from its place in the world.

My real question is this:

Am I a cherry tomato, appreciated wherever I may be, or am I a weed, my virtues undiscovered in this world of humans passing by?

Alan