She’s the Peas
Waking up on her 38th Thanksgiving, she wasn’t thinking about food—at least not directly—and she definitely was not thinking about eating. The thoughts floating in her mind were only just a response to food on this particular day. Instead of gratitude, it is food that is the obvious centerpiece of this American “holiday.” If anything were to squash her appetite is the thought of pouring the grease of the bird on the dry dark meat like this holiday covers our foul and dark history with the original inhabitants of this land.
She knew in six or so hours she’d be looking at her plate of food, the excess of it, the inability to finish it. Surely there would be glasses of gross cow’s milk along with the chatter and mmmms and ahhhhs of a feast. And the green peas. The green peas that were saturated in margarine-not even butter. Fucking margarine. If you want to lose your appetite further, look up how and why margarine came into being. No, don’t actually do it. So, she certainly wasn’t the free-range turkey, or even the yukon gold mashed potatoes, and definitely not the delicious spread of desserts. She was the green peas. Yes. The putrid-colored soggy side dish in her own life. She wondered if she were to eat the peas on the very edge of her plate—even with the margarine—and eat all the side dishes, would she stop circling them with her fork? She was hoping the fork would do the job—swallow them up so she wouldn’t have to. But she knew she’d have to do it herself if she had any chance of getting to her own center. Didn’t she have to make the peas disappear to stop seeing them as her reflection? It seemed to be the only way. Then she could move on and look at the cherry covered decadence on the dessert table. Do you have to start seeing yourself on the outside and work your way towards your very core or is it the other way around? Sighing, but not out loud, she thought: if it’s all just circles then there is no lateral direction in which to measure. If there is no direction or measure, can you ever really even get there? And so perhaps, there is no real destination for our spheres and circles…just like the peas still rolling around her plate.
About the artist/author