One sunny morning, on my way to a coffee shop, I noticed charming limes with leaves left by a fence. In San Diego, there is a quiet gesture of generosity: people leave their harvest by the fence, allowing it to become part of a shared space. Those limes filled me with a sense of hope, kindness, and care.

When I returned to the studio, I was already in anticipation and began to paint them. Suddenly I realized — spring is near. For some, they are simply fruit. For me — they are hope.

This work is about a state of waiting.

Not passive waiting, but an inner one — when movement has already begun beneath the surface, like sap rising through a tree long before the first leaves appear.

In the painting, the limes are firm, vibrant, filled with light. Green here is not about calm. It is about awakening. About the tension of life just before it unfolds.

While working, I remembered painting apricots back home in my garden, and I added a rose chafer beetle. These insects always knew when to arrive for fresh sap — as if their rhythm was tuned to the moment nature begins a new cycle of renewal.

This painting is about the moment before visible change.

When nothing seems to have happened yet,

but growth is already underway.

The sap is flowing.

Even if the branches appear still.

And growth cannot be stopped.