Watermelon
Tomorrow is trash day. I have to remember to get all of the food related debris that would potentially cause odors and attract flies out of the outside freezer and place them in the actual trash for the early morning pick-up. A daunting task.. Along with that I must cut the watermelon I purchased. I decided to stop being lazy AND PAYING 3x’s the price for cut up fruit. Okay, if I am honest I came to this conclusion not of my own accord.
Being healthier is tough, we all want to be, we all need to be, yet it still presents a problem. These problems real, imaginary, or exaggerated still manage to manifest. I did not cut that melon when I bought it Monday afternoon, for the previously mentioned reasons and then of course there was the one other that I did not.
Next month will mark a year since I became a widow. While I can never forget that fact, on a daily basis I find a way to move through this place on a somewhat “normal plane”. The unexpected reminders will forever “throw-me-for-a-loop”. That watermelon..We would shop for groceries…one of the two types of stores(hardware being the other) I did not care to go to. Monday evening I took a deep breath and approached the melons, after I HAD gone to the refrigerated section in produce and looked at the cut up fruits. The display boasted two bins filled with the “round-ish” green striped fruits. I thought of all the “techniques” I heard over the years, thumps this way, look for this type mark ,sniff.. wait in a COVID19 world sniffing is virtually impossible and frowned upon at the very least. I hastily looked them over, decided on one and took it home.
Later that night it came to me in a semi-dream state..My husband’s hands. He would painstakingly organize the fridge in HIS domain, and I cared NOT. Though I am a very capable and, in the opinion of some, a rather good cook. I just do not enjoy it as a couple of my sister/friends do. After enduring a grocery trip I would be free to escape the putting away of the food because again, this was my husband’s domain. However, I did enjoy food prep. I was his tester, be it something he had cooked or the fruit he prepared/sliced up for the family. Mangoes and melons; the fragrance always resonated through the house. I can smell them even now. I still can see him in the kitchen cutting them up and calling me to taste a perfectly sweet fruit. He always said he knew exactly what he was doing when it came to picking out fruits. When I cut open that melon today the aroma took me back to one of those many random nights, I saw him cut a piece of melon, offer it to me, and place it in my mouth. I recall his hands; from the fingernails to his wrists, the hairs on them, the color of his skin, the touch/his touch. The only thing I did slightly familiar was pick out a melon and experience the aroma. It was not even a very good one.
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