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fruit
November 2009 
Juice from raw fruit
Posted on Nov 5th, 2009
by 
Meenakshi
Meenakshi
As a child, I loved raw fruit. The opportunity to bite into a freshly plucked grown but hard guava vied for favor with the crisp sweetness of the ripening fruit. A 'ripe' guava - no, I could not eat it. Too soft for me.
When you bite into a fully grown unripe fruit, your biting draws out its juice and its sweetness. It doesn't just yield its flavor, but keeps it ready for the strength of your jaws, the sharpness of your teeth.
I was content to do the same with relationships. It wouldn't be easy. Words would be misunderstood, intentions misconstrued, contemplative silence perceived as a threat. So I rose to the surface of the ocean. I spoke, I communicated, I learned some of the ways of the world, made friends, went for lunches.
The silence of the deep ocean calls to me again.
I wonder if aging teeth will convince the tongue to be satisfied with the easy sweetness of ripe guava.
Perhaps if I call it amrood, as my mother first called it when she described how she likes only raw fruit. She grew up in gardens with fruit trees, and which child can wait for fruit to ripen before eating it?
When you bite into a fully grown unripe fruit, your biting draws out its juice and its sweetness. It doesn't just yield its flavor, but keeps it ready for the strength of your jaws, the sharpness of your teeth.
I was content to do the same with relationships. It wouldn't be easy. Words would be misunderstood, intentions misconstrued, contemplative silence perceived as a threat. So I rose to the surface of the ocean. I spoke, I communicated, I learned some of the ways of the world, made friends, went for lunches.
The silence of the deep ocean calls to me again.
I wonder if aging teeth will convince the tongue to be satisfied with the easy sweetness of ripe guava.
amrood
Perhaps if I call it amrood, as my mother first called it when she described how she likes only raw fruit. She grew up in gardens with fruit trees, and which child can wait for fruit to ripen before eating it?
Access: Public
Wow! I thought I was the only creature on the planet to each the 'crunchy' fruit! I don't care for soft pears, give me a crunchy Anjou pear. Mmmm!
Don't tell anyone but I also like my bananas green. Too yellow or starting into the 'brown spot' faze and I will hope somebody starts making banana bread from it!
You will cut your fruit with a knife and nibble around the edges before you will be satisfied with a ripe guava! They don't taste the same when they're ripe so if you don't care for the ripened fruit now, you'll probably not give in to “easy sweetness” just because you aren't able to bite straight into it.
I think you will keep on being you, tackling the difficult, simply figuring out a different way to tackle it along the way.
Hugz!
Ah, so it's both you and me, Amber - with those greener bananas and the crunchy fruit; and I'm sure there are others too in our EAT YOUR FRUIT BEFORE IT'S OVER-RIPE SOCIETY!!!!
you'll probably not give in to “easy sweetness”
sigh! you're probably right; though I'm discovering aspects to aging that are pretty freeing in this regard:
tackling the difficult, simply figuring out a different way to tackle it along the way.
to wit: don't tackle; acknowledge, and allow.
Bringing back our school days. We enjoyed a lot of varieties of fruits, at home, school and everywhere. Eating them raw is an enjoyment. Knifes are not necessary. No need to cut at all. Even now we enjoy the fruits of different kinds but those by gone days will never come back.
Meenakshi, my first three years were spent in my homeland, Trinidad. I am told I used to wake up and demand my morning mango :) I don't ever remember like it unripe! There is nothing like the taste of fresh sweet mango. Wondering if there can be a sweetness to relationship, does it always have to be a struggle? Hugs
Sanmugan, you're right; and for our children, these are the days that they will remember. funny isn't it? It was our 'old days' and our parents 'new days' and they were thinking of their bygone days when we were experiencing the new ones….
gosh! getting dizzy again; must be those spiral numbers ;p
Nicole, hmmm…you're right you know; an unripe mango seems like another fruit than a ripe one. In India, we often eat unripe mangoes - like a really tangy snack [specially, they say, pregnant women crave it but it didn't happen to me]. And yes, a ripe mango is wonderful—just ripe one. But amrood—ah it has to be unripe!
I love the Pears as well. I don't like them mushy, and waiting for that perfect timing is soooooooo difficult. A crisp Washington apple is up there on my list.
When you write…
“Words would be misunderstood, intentions misconstrued, contemplative silence perceived as a threat. So I rose to the surface of the ocean. I spoke, I communicated, I learned some of the ways of the world, made friends, went for lunches.
The silence of the deep ocean calls to me again.”
When I was young my friends and other kids would attack if I was silent for too long. So, like you I had to surface, and like you the deep ocean calls now.
So nice to know I am not alone in feeling this.
Beautiful!
z
Crunch… Yummm!
Meenakshi I love to read your words…and I wonder what “The silence of the deep ocean calls to me again” means.
Nishtha, ahh the sound of fresh fruit being bitten into! I can just taste that juice…
Zennie, you're with me - lovely! Strange isn't it, how so many words can flow when we start! But that silence…
Helen, it's the silence of watching the world go by and being aware of it very deeply; sometimes seeing patterns and not the individual strands, perhaps looking away at the ocean as a poem emerges…and then being jolted back to 'reality' by someone saying - you're being moody!
But you know what, that's not it exactly; I do feel you know it, actually.