I am amazed by how people in New Jersey treat each other.
How rude! Bump, honk, block, yell, gesture, frown.
And that is just in the grocery store! It is shocking.
A woman seems to think I am the safe one to approach so she comes over to me and asks,
“Do you know where the escarole is?”
Escarole.
My mind draws the blank card. I scroll through images like I am slowly flipping pages of a book in my mind: fennel, watercress, arugula, mesclun, radicchio.
I say, “I am so sorry. Escarole. I cannot think of what it looks like but I will be happy to help you look.”
The part of my mind that once knew escarole is missing.
I scan the rows of vegetables.
“Does it look like that?” I point at the red frilled edges of the radicchio. I cannot recall if escarole is red or green.
“I think it is green”, she says. “Yes, maybe so” I agree.
I have had to get used to being wrong all the time.
There is often a squishy sloshy feeling in my head, like someone is in there walking around in rain boots.
Pray tell, is it the Morton salt girl splashing about in the puddles in my attic?
It’s like someone is trying to make soup in my head.
Do I hear someone singing Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head?
(By the way, did you know that it was Mr. Joy Morton who founded Morton’s Salt, and it was his father Mr. J Sterling Morton who was the founder of Arbor Day? Small world! Every day is a good day to celebrate Trees!)
As for me, I have not even caught up to the New Year yet.
Escarole!
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