Wild foodstuffs of Pacific Heights

I’ve always been kind of sensitive to things being out of place (I chalk it up to having a neat freak Asian mom, but maybe it’s just my nature).  It’s useful when I’m editing for mistakes in a musical score (I’ll write a whole blog post on that some time) but less so when I’m rearranging leggings at Costco because they’ve mixed in some navy with the black ones.

So lately I’ve been trying to use this proclivity of mine, not to judge my environment but to use as a tool to be more aware of the little moments of wonder I might be missing in the world around me.  Enter the jar of peanut butter.

There it was, in its pristine unopened-ness on top of a trash can in my neighborhood of Pacific Heights.  The weird thing is that it sat there for nearly a week, seemingly untouched.  It was odd, surprising and thought-provoking all at once, a little mystery unto itself – who did it belong to?  How did it get there?  Who eventually took it?

Which got me thinking, what other food is sitting around in my neighborhood?  I’m not talking about cartons of half-eaten Chinese food that have fallen out of a trash can, but complete containers of food that are sitting in a public space.  And when I started noticing these things-being-out-of-place, I saw them EVERYWHERE.

Apple sauce on a bench in Alta Plaza Park.

A container of rice on California St.

A jar of olives on Pine St.

This odd couple on Sacramento St.

This guy right outside of Mollie Stone’s.

And finally, this jar of organic pasta sauce nestled in a tree.

It struck me that none of these things look like they were tossed haphazardly, but rather that they were placed carefully.  And this was in the span of just six months, in a 5 block radius!  I mean, this must be happening all the time; it’s just that I wasn’t being truly aware of my environment and mindful in my daily treks around the neighborhood.

Is all of this simply an example of food waste in our hyper-consumerist society?  I choose to take it as a tangible reminder of the little moments of wonder life is constantly throwing our way, if we just take the time to notice.