Salt and Honey: Can You See God in a Grapefruit?

Can You See God in a Grapefruit?

by Aliza Abusch-Magder

from Salt & Honey: Jewish Teens on Feminism, Creativity, and Tradition

 

Thousands of juice packets. Sweet, tangy, sour. Packed so closely together in communities commonly called "pieces," and when you hand me a piece of your grapefruit, you hand me a little collection of individuals held together by a thin, opaque, fibrous skin.

When I passed the grapefruit tree on the way to the bank, I effortlessly plucked the ripe, perfumed, leathered teardrop slowly falling from its tired branch.

I casually held a world in my hand, a real-life Horton Hears a Who! 

Don't you see God in Dr. Seuss? Wasn't it divine?

My mama reading me silly rhyming stories, drawing me a bath handing me a perfectly packed piece of her grapefruit and handing me the peel, all in one, an innocuous fiery pigmented snake with a raw, pale underbelly.

She gave me God from the tips of her fingers directly into my mouth, from the harp of her lips directly into my heart.

When she comes to visit, I will slice open a grapefruit, separate the film from the meat, sprinkle it with sugar.

We will sit together, eating the God we both believe in.

 

 

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