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Kiwi People – and I Don’t Mean New Zealanders
Posted by: | CommentsI like kiwi fruit. I mean, I freakin’ love kiwi fruit.
I find it completely titillating that underneath a coarse, brown furry coat there exists a succulent and juicy green, seeded surprise just waiting to tempt my taste buds. I also contemplate regularly the identity of the poor bastard who first said:
I betcha can eat that!
Beautiful things come in all sorts of wrappers … whether it be a radiant bouquet of flowers arranged wildly in a vase with the giver’s smile tucked discretely between the words on the card or the six-legged splendor of a lady bug’s grace veiled by a crimson and noir coating.
How deep do we allow our eyes to search for beauty, though?
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the immediate appreciation of that which we find alluring at any given instant. It could be the simplest sunrise bathing the horizon in hues of coral and violet or just a looker of a man/woman we catch a glimpse of across a crowded room. I wonder how much I’m missing when I choose to not look beyond that instant.
Would I ever have enjoyed the fur-coated striptease of the scrumptious kiwi had I not seen what the insides held for me? Kinda like the first 3 zillion folks who looked at a kiwi and said “WTF!?!”, I’m going to venture to say oh HELL no!
People are much like kiwi fruit, I think. There’s something about everyone in our lives that we were immediately (or NOT so) attracted to, each person’s own little furry brown coat of quirkiness and peculiarity. I think that half the world runs screaming when they see something that doesn’t fit into their vision of peachfuzz happiness and that as a result, we miss a lot of wonderful things while tripping through life here on Terra Firma. I’ve found the greatest, most long-lived treasures in my life through the things I’ve treated as kiwi.
I think of my best friends, my family, my passions (and perversions) – all have come about by my willingness and determination to get past the portentous pelt that was keeping from me the most divine of earthly and spiritual delights! Those things and people who have brought me laughter and love, priceless memories and photos bordering on blackmail, the peace in my soul and the sound of its voice when prompted to sing like a Baptist choir in the Mississippi delta — none of which would have come into my life had I not gone kiwi on their asses and got down into the seeds.
Those seeds—a bit crunchy and unfamiliar at first bite. As I get further and further along into treating folk like kiwi, though, I begin to anticipate that moment I’ll hear the first minute ~crunch~ as I delve deeper into their core and begin to see them for who they really are … past the rough beginnings, enjoying the journey through the sweet pulp of their day-to-day impact on my life. All of the people I have in my life, each truly has a beautiful soul and what was once the intimidating being shielded by a daunting exterior has revealed itself as a juicy emerald gem with onyx pearls of individuality seated within.
Even if you hate kiwi fruit, surely you have something in your life worth peeling and getting to know better – something that could be a sweet surprise if you were only to take a leap of faith and let your soul perform the peeling. Beauty surrounds us in every instant and in so many different ways that, while I don’t have the time to treat everything in life like a kiwi fruit, the thought that I have the potential to do so is just…
yummy
The Pain for Which We Pay
Posted by: | CommentsEach Monday and Wednesday, I reaffirm the fact that the Devil does not wear Prada like recent film and pulp fiction would have us believe … rather, it wears a little white tank top and nags me to pull my navel into my spine.
Ah, yes. Pilates class.
For two hours a week, I pay for the pleasure (?) of being instructed through my group Pilates reformer class. As well, both evenings following I am haunted by the innocent chirping of my dear instructor’s voice saying “Do you feel that?” while her doe eyes look on at the beads of sweat forming on my brow as I work muscles I didn’t know I had. While I could take another flip through the Grey’s Anatomy tome in an attempt to construct a viable argument as to why my body does not “go” that way, I think my time is better spent pondering why I continue to return week after week for my scheduled torture.
Truth be known, I love it. Fuck, I’m a glutton for punishment and the bottom line is I relish each and every one of those classes like a huge slice of lemonNothing Bundt Cake laid before me accompanied by a gift-wrapped fork.
Come to think of it, Nothing Bundt Cake should open-up a location adjacent to my Pilates Studio…talk about a symbiotic relationship…
I salivate at the thought of the evil contraptions with the “fuzzy” attachments going to war with the gyros salad I had at Paymon’s earlier that day for lunch. While it’s inevitable that my entire body will bitch-slap me like a pimp after each class (if raising my arms were even a possibility), I’ve signed-on to be part of the stable of the Beeyatches Who Need an Ass Whoopin’ (and aren’t afraid to write a check for it).
We all have something in our lives, I think, that we put ourselves through regardless of the pain it brings … and why? Because we’re doing good work when we do it. There exists a little bit of a slacker in me, regardless of how neatly my closet is arranged (shirts by sleeve length, then skirts, then pants, then dresses, then contemplation of if therapy should be sought for my OCD). If I’m tied to a chair in a basement somewhere and some guy in a fedora is asking me where the bloody diamonds are — I’ll crack. I give! I pay for it because I won’t do it on my own! Stop! Please! There is occasionally clean laundry that is not put away, a dishwasher run and then forgotten about, and I still don’t have any godforsaken baseboards in my house…I will shirk painting my bathroom in favor of rock climbing, and I’m horrible about letting magazine subscriptions expire.
My twice-a-week flogging at the hands of the doe-eyed Beelzebub in a white tank top — I actually look forward to it. I am quite sure that the expressions that cross my face throughout the hours I’m there are, indeed, priceless, and I am thoroughly convinced that Beelzebub cannot count. “Eight more” inevitably turns into thirteen, and there are days I just want to scream “I just did eight and F*CK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!” However, to do so would be to deny the fact that I crave that nausea-inducing buildup of lactic acid in my “whatever” muscle and relegate myself to the Land of the Whiny Little Bitch as the other women in the class trudge through their “eight more” as if they hail from Stepford.
I made the mistake one day of mentioning that I thought some sheepskin-lined straps on one of the machines looked “friendly and comfy.” Beelzebub showed me that they are not friendly. Heed my warnings, Partakers of Pilates — do not be tempted by their plush appearance. They are Evil wearing a plush coat to lure you into their fold, and once your ankle is firmly planted, they will suck the life out of your leg like a venus fly trap with prey in its grasp.
I don’t think it’s so wrong to admit to myself that one of my shortcomings is doing “good work” in certain areas. If I’m at the gym, I can quit working out anytime I want and just call Time of Death and rationalize my way into the sauna for the last half hour. The plain truth is – I want to get better at this Pilates thing, and I know it’s not going to happen on my own. Resigning myself to indentured servitude for two hours a week seems to be the least I can do if I’m serious about this, because I know I can’t quit in the middle.
I’m trapped, like Paris Hilton in an LA county jail without her cell phone. Trapped in the worst way. Yet, for me in this instance, I’m trapped in the best way possible: for my own good.
So I say — PEOPLE! Go forth and trap thyself! Git yerself hogtied to whatever it is that you want to improve in life, as sometimes, the “good work” we need to do requires a little bit of supervision…a dab of babysitting. Our sado-masochistic sides all need to utter the occasional “Yes, Mistress!” (gag ball sold separately)
It’s likely that’s what I’ll say as I pay for my next block of 10 classes next week. May I have another?
Corefit Pilates Studio…ask for Beelzebub, er, I mean Jessica.
Reflecting
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You can't hoodwink the light...
There is a cherry sitting on my desk. Much like the one shown here, the skin enveloping the inevitable tastiness ranges in hue from deep burgundy to sinful scarlet. The gentle slope of the curving towards the stem is … startling. The stem seems interminably long, providing what I’m sure was once it’s umbilical cord to the cherry mother ship.
I can see my reflection in the skin. The world behind me lays in a fruity warp with the single white hazy point coming from the overhead fluorescent that set my office aglow.
I sit here with this cherry on my desk, having rolled it round betwixt my index fingers for some time now, chasing that white haze across it’s surface. I’ve tried to trick it once or twice with a hasty change of direction (perhaps thinking that the little spot of white haze would teeter precariously on the cherry’s brink and fall, landing haphazardly on a Post-It note like aftermath in a Liquid Paper murder).
Damnedest thing is — you can’t hoodwink the light.
No matter which direction I choose, the certain white haze remains transfixed. While its reflection may become slightly mottled from the surface it must launch from, it endures regardless of my antics.
It’s funny how fruit has this morning reminded me that I should never forget where I’m going and that there’s something for certain that we all tread amidst. I guess I can change direction in life as much as my heart desires, but that light is always going to be there to guide me when I’m ready to see it’s glow again.
I need to re-read The Alchemist. Urim and Thummim are calling.
