I saw my dear teacher eye the pack of cigarettes on the table and then pretend she hadn't. Feeling fractious because of all the things I wanted to know about her but didn’t allow myself to ask, I blurted "you know, smoking will make you infertile."
I saw just the softest loss of color around her lips and I immediately hated my inner artichoke's hateful pokes.
Why can't I be just peas? Uncomplicated, part of a unit, always sweet, loved even by children, perfect in almost every state . . . but even their sweetness is fragile, too quickly becoming slimy and stinky as they melt into their opposite selves. Little green liars they are.
Can I be taro root? Hard, mysterious, hairy, potato's Hell's Angel, the thing my mother admired for its exotic purple flour, the color of promised sweetness. Or was that something else entirely? Yam I am?
I cross my leg and bump the table, which makes the cigarettes jiggle. She gets up and walks away from them and me, leaving me to muddle out of my self-imposed slickery taro/yam conundrum. She stands by the window, her gaze stretching far out over the ocean to a point I could never see.
She says "You know, I had a ginger root child and he was dear and bright and spicy. But when he began to wither I panicked and put him in soil to keep him fresh. It was what he needed but in giving him his own life I eventually lost him to sprouts, then stems, then leaves, and when he flowered I knew he was no longer mine. When I smoked I could fill my empty corners with a thickness that mimicked the fullness I'd lost, for just a moment. And when I let out the smoke I could see shapes like my little ghost ginger baby for brief seconds. They helped me let him be flowers."
I sit there, a rotting tomato watching her strong asparagus back with my seedy, once acidic eyes. Why do I forget that there are places others have been that I can't even imagine? Why do I want to poke my dear one who I love more than I even yet know? I'm not even worthy of sauce.
She turns back and looks at me more kindly than any rotting tomato was ever looked at and her kind eyes gently guide me away from my crisis of identity. I am not peas or tomatoes or something not even a mother could love. I come back to my best artichoke self, able to be transformed by heat, tough and tender, sweet around the prickles, one flavor alone, a thousand other flavors erupting when combined, often beautiful, always wild.
