Dear Friends,
It’s always a blessing to overhear a conversation and have it stick in your brain a while. A middle-aged dad sighed. His two children, a boy and a girl in school uniforms, were scampering about the produce section at Kroger’s where I was picking up apples. The father said loudly, I love you, but we’re not getting another starfruit. Remember what happened last time?.
I saw the family again at checkout in the lane next to me and thought about asking, Well, what did happen last time? But of course, I didn’t. The father looked so tired, so done, and certainly did not need my nonsense. Besides, there was something beautiful about the absolute mystery of it—a mystery that did not concern itself with me or anyone outside of that family.
Opening with I love you is why I remember the whole scene so vividly, I think. It was a humorous, tender touch. And the I love you is what elevates the mystery into poetry.
For the fifth volume (!) of our little journal, we too have I love you’s, in all its forms and variations. We have love of teaching, love of words, love a body, even a body that betrays, love of healing, and love of an omelet—all golden, all gooey. And mixed up in that love is loss—we are not getting another starfruit. There’s just no way that there will ever be another starfruit!
While I did not purchase starfruit that day or any of the subsequent shopping trips, I did take the trouble of looking up some facts about the fruit. Ripe starfruits are sweet and tangy; underripe are sour and bitter. Children are not especially known for their patience, so I imagine they went in too soon. Or something else altogether strange occurred.
We will never know. But let’s go slow, just in case.
Best,
Nadia Arioli
