Memories of Tomato Philosophy

"She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow."
--Sandra Cisneros

In Italy, you buy a tomato when it's ripe and red. You don't buy a pink tomato and rush it to redness. No. Why? Because would you want someone rushing you? No, you buy it when it's ready. When it's so red you can still feel the warmth of the sun.You let yourself be on the tomato's timeline because some things are out of our hands.

In America, you buy a pink tomato and tell it to be ready tomorrow by 6:00PM. When the tomato is still pink, you decide to cook it anyway while voicing your disappointment. The tomato tastes unripe. Your meal is uninspired. You wish the tomato had a supervisor to whom you could complain. Damn tomato.

In America, you stick an artist in an autoshop. Because she's poor and she needs to work over her Christmas break to afford school next semester. Customers ignore her and ask to speak with the men, she runs in and out of the shop at your request when she could have answered your questions. When her boss orders an extra alternator and starter, he yells at her. Then he tells her he wishes he never had kids and wants to divorce his wife. She rubs her eyes in the bathroom. There's too much pressure and sadness in this grey world of blue collar. She watches the cars driving by outside her window and wonders if anyone is ever happy anywhere.

In Italy, once upon a time, a young girl cooks dinner and shouts hello down to her friends then buzzes them in to the apartment. The walls in the place are sweating from the heat of pasta water. All of the windows are open but the house is still warm. Soon, the bottles are popped and music wafts through the window from the bar across the street. The sound of strumming guitars and rolling laughter. Everyone pauses before the first bite to ponder their luck. They smile.

In America, epiphanies come in waves. A girl wonders if she's being melodramatic and ridiculous. In a family where everyone has always done the work that needs to be done, she wonders if she gets to choose work she will actually want to do. She wishes she wasn't such a sensitive fucking extrovert who hates yelling and discord. Maybe this is all life will hold for her. Dissatisfaction and existence devoid of inspiration. Liberal arts education and thin skin compete with Mexican Immigrant and Black values. She thinks she's fucked. Maybe.