sometimes i wonder if the grocers at my local co-op see me sulking around the store with my hands in my coat pockets and think “that girl looks like she’s up to something. she’s surely about to steal those tomatoes.” (maybe that’s my anxiety talking.)
i come to the co-op when i’m depressed because i like the smells of fresh-ground coffee and baguettes and cardamom tea that linger in the air, and the smell of the plastic bags for wholesale grains, and the cheese at the deli counter, and the incense aisle. i come to the co-op on dreary holidays when i’m avoiding my extended family and making an excuse to stay home, because the co-op is open every day of the year.
easter, rather, this distinct marker of the beginning of spring, is always unsettling for me. every year a memory resurfaces from my childhood of an easter celebration at a mega church where i passed out during the crucifixion scene in the passion of the christ. i had just gotten my first period but i was too scared to tell my mom or the doctor.
spring is clammy and uncomfortable. it shakes me up. time is turning me over like soil being readied for a garden.