writing challenge

52-9 A Fruit I Hate and Why

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One thing I like about this 52-week writing challenge is the different topics I culled from various writing challenge lists (from Pinterest, by the way). Never in my life did I think I’d write about fruit, but here we go.

Hate is Such a Harsh Word

I can’t say I hate pomegranates. I love the crunchy seeds and that little splash of flavor when you chew them. I don’t hate them; merely, I find them frustrating. As far as I’m concerned they’re unpeelable and getting to the fruity, crunchy seeds is near impossible.

Oh, you say, there’s a special way to extract the seeds. I know. I’ve tried about a half-dozen of them. I’ve watched YouTube how-to videos, read how-to articles, and by the time I’m done trying to get the seeds out, I’ve lost interest.

And, yes, you can buy the seeds already extracted, but they don’t taste as fresh.

The Taste Test

Maybe it’s me, but years ago when I got introduced to mangos in Hawai’i, I thought they were manna from heaven. I had to have a fresh one every morning for breakfast. I even asked the waitress how to pick out a good one at the grocery store fresh fruit department.

Mangos in Virginia don’t take as good as mangos in Hawai’i. I don’t know why. I only know they tasted awful. I thought it was my imagination (actually, that’s what my ex said), but when I returned to Hawai’i a few years later, I had delicious, fresh, juicy, heavenly tasting mangos for breakfast each morning. Back home in Virginia? Meh.

It was the same for me with buying seeds already extracted from pomegranates. They didn’t taste the same. Now, I walk past the fresh pomegranates in my local grocery store with a wistful sigh (I don’t even look at the mangos.) and with only a memory of how they taste, quickly fading.

Do you have a “fool-proof” way of getting seeds from your pomegranates? If so, tell me in the comments, and I’ll try it.

52-5 A Place Where I’d Live but Have Never Been

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Easy. Ireland.

No, this won’t be the shortest blog post ever.

Why Ireland?

I have roots there, and my grandmother told me stories and sang me revolutionary songs. If she were still here, she would say, “The bones of your ancestors call to you.” I have enough spirituality left that I get that.

I’ve never been there, and, yeah, that’s a shock. You see, granny believed in reunion, unusual for someone with Northern Ireland roots. However, she was born before there was an Irish Republic, before there was a Northern Ireland. She elicited a youthful promise from me that I wouldn’t ever go until Ireland was reunified.

She’s been dead for forty-three years. Do I dare?

Knowing Where You Come From

A year or so after my father died, I decided I needed to know more about the Scottish part of me. I took three weeks off work, spent a week in London, and two weeks driving the Scottish countryside, from Edinburgh to Dundee to Inverness, around Loch Ness (sadly, Nessie eluded me), and back to Edinburgh.

When I stepped off the plane from London to Edinburgh onto the tarmac, the bones of my Scottish ancestors said, “You’re home.” And I felt it.

Outside Inverness at the museum for the Battle of Culloden, I walked the Moor of Culloden, among the cairns erected for the dead, and I saw familiar names. This battle, family legend goes, was the source of the first Duncans to come to Virginia. They wanted to escape retribution from an English king.

My two weeks there were oddly comforting, as if I’d brought a part of my father home. When I boarded the plane to go back to the states, I felt as if I were leaving home.

My Mysterious Other Half

I grew up acknowledging and celebrating my Scottish ancestry but not my Irish. I’m not sure why, other than my grandmother and, hence, my mother never talked about it much. Even the stories my grandmother told me were “fairy tales.” I learned later there were immigration issues involved, and they wanted no attention drawn to themselves.

I don’t even know what piqued my interest in my Irish ancestry. Perhaps it was a woman who remarked I had an Irish face, or a man from Aer Lingus who gave me a potted shamrock because, he said, I need a bit of Ireland in my life.

And so, Ireland has called to me for several years now, and I need to go. What’s stopped me, you ask. Certainly not a forty-three year old promise. (Well, maybe a little; no one wants to get haunted by her angry grandmother.) I think it’s because once I get there, I’ll feel at home.

And I won’t want to leave.

Okay, what’s the place where you’d live but have never been to before? Let me know in the comments.