June 6, 2011

  • Contemplating life while eating a Julie mango over the sink

    There's too much to consider. Peel with a knife or my teeth? How to avoid the juice running down my arm or into my shirt? How to minimize the little mango thread that gets stuck in my teeth? Throw the seed and skin in a trashcan or out the window?

    This is partly what I wonder as I eat.

    But then there's a point where all you do is eat. Radio silence in the brain. The Julie mango says shut up and eat me.

    I've been in Trinidad for almost three weeks now and on multiple occasions I've come to realize that I don't think about much when I'm here. Of course there's always a thought. Like, "I wonder what sorts of animals live on that mountain in the background, and do people live all the way up there?" or "I remember that fruit tree, based on what the leaves look like." And yes I've thought about my life and, vaguely, some of the things I want to do. But it's like being here prevents any hemming and hawing about the future, any wringing of hands about the direction of my life. I suppose though, a vacation is not much like one's every day life.

    I'll be living here next year for a year while doing ethnographic research for my dissertation. There's a lot to consider, a lot to worry and hem and haw and wring my hands about. And I probably will.

    It's just...right now I've forgotten to care. Right now, it's mango season.