WHEN YOUR FRUIT TALKS, LISTEN.

It all started with a banana. The sticker on the banana I held in my hand, in my Prairie Canadian kitchen, read "Ecuador". Ecuador! I took offense at my banana. Like it was a personal affront. I had never been outside of Canada. My banana was taunting me with travel tales and "you've failed"s. It had gone further in it's short life than I had and it was trying to stick it to me. Seeing as this was decidedly unacceptable, I decided right then and there to write a "Life List". I was around 14 at the time. Funny what you write when you're 14. "Pick a banana off a tree and eat it." Yep, a life-lister right up there with Everest. To see a banana tree would mean I was somewhere I never imagined I'd ever get. And I needed to get there!

First time I saw one was in Tanzania. BUT they were small and unripe. It blew my mind, but it didn't count. I had to fulfill the sentence in its entirety. 

Thereafter I was in many many countries alongside banana trees but they were always unripe. That’s how it goes with bananas. Locals slice them off while still unripe and ship them half-way across the world. This was going to be harder than I imagined.

Then I had a bad day. A really really bad day. I broke away from my life in the afternoon and went on a rigorous hike up the ‘Īao Valley Needle. 

An hour or so on, back at base, I stood for a moment, just before heading back to my car. I don’t know what caused me to look up. To look up and spot the most unexpected beautiful banana hands I'd ever seen. Ripe. Ready for the picking. For eating. How such a horrific day could offer up such sweet satisfaction taught me a good life lesson as I drew a long awaited check mark across my ever-lengthening list of moments lived...

That blessed banana sticker from way back when challenged me to see the world, to LIVE, to never limit myself. My banana told me I could. And so I did. And I've never looked back.