Eat the Damn Fruit

There’s a joke in my family that when you want caution, you’ll call one of my other siblings. But when you want permission, you’ll call me. 

My mother calls routinely with questions about a bag of lettuce that has yesterday’s date on it, a dented box of crackers, and recently, a jar of maraschino cherries in which the contents were various colors and sizes.

I’m worried, she says. Should we still eat them?

It’s ok, I say. I know she’s calling me for a specific response. If she wanted to throw them away, she’d have called someone else. But she doesn’t. She wants to eat them. So she’s called me.

Eat the fruit, I tell her.

The thing is: If you call to ask me the question out loud, I will always tell you to eat the damn fruit.

I’m not the most practical person you’ve ever met. I’m not a great cook and my house isn’t immaculate. There are piles of just-started books everywhere, and we are routinely out of paper towels or milk. To be clear: I’m a great admirer of those people who get these things right. I am simply not one of those people.

I left a stable but exhausting legal career twelve years ago, and I found my way (through lots of stops and starts) to a writing career that recently saw me launching my first legal thriller series, the Riversedge Law Club Series.

Book #1 of the Series, IN HER DEFENSE, is about two women connected by a past, a friendship gone wrong, and a dead man. It’s also about generations of women trying to figure out how much to risk for their families, their lives, and their legacies. It’s about second chances, thinking outside the box, and deciding who gets permission to break the rules. There are characters you’d call if you want practical advice. And there are characters you’d call if you want something else altogether.

In my own transition from the law to writer, I haven’t done anything by the book, and there have been plenty of leaps of faith, along with a few detours. But still, I gave myself permission at every turn in the road – to stay the course, to plow forward. To eat the damn fruit.

I have a ridiculously exuberant energy for people’s stories, and if you tell me yours, I will listen and I will nod and I will mean it when I say, tell me more. I will stop in my tracks when I hear you say, “I just always wanted to -” And I will help you draw diagrams and road maps to get to those places because really, I think when people say a wish out loud, all they really want to hear is, yes. (Well, I mean, that’s all I’ve ever really wanted to hear when I say it out loud, so I’m happy to pay it forward.)

And listen, I’m a mom and I have teenagers, and I know darn well, there is a time for caution. There’s a time for practicality and rule-following, and throwing the fruit away. There are people who will tell you how and why to do those things, and when you need that advice, those are the people you will be inclined to call. And you are well served to do so.

But when you want someone to tell you your crazy dream isn’t so crazy, call me.

When you want someone to tell you the highs and lows are to be expected and embraced, and sometimes you have to break a rule or two and take a risk and push past the expiration date, call me. The thing is, I know, if you’re calling me, you already know what you want. You did the pros and cons and you’ve likely decided exactly what you want. You just want someone else to corroborate the story you’re already telling yourself. And my friend, having been through this exact same decision-making process, I’m a willing accomplice.

If you want caution and playing it safe, you know who to call. Call them.

But when you want to eat the damn fruit, call me.

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