Temporarily my mind returns to the present and once again I am back in the produce isle at The Fresh Market. I have already decided that there will be nothing ordinary for me this particular day, so I purposely look for and eventually pick out another foreign–looking vegetable. As I examine my second choice from all angles, I can’t help but pick up a feminine vibe. I move this item, labeled a tomatillo, gently around in my hand and notice it is light green, “cute” and round with a protective parchment-like outer covering. Isn’t she sweet?, I think to myself as I wander back into my fantasy world.
I’m young and very naïve. At the time I’m in my senior year at an all-girls Academy run by a bunch of exceedingly up-tight, semi-cloistered nuns. Everything is rigid and well-defined; we don’t dare deviate from the prescribed rules or cross any of the lines that have been drawn in the sand. It has been thoroughly ingrained that even the slightest slip off this very narrow path could lead us on the road to eternal damnation.
My virginal body and unsoiled mind is being preserved by a covering of sorts. The tree-like branches of my overpowering pre-Vatican II Church, my overwhelming all-girls Catholic Academy High School and my over-protective, sheltering family have grown up all around me. This thick vine crawls up in all directions encasing and guarding me, keeping me shiny, new and unblemished.
In a way it feels good to be preserved in parchment like this. I’m the good girl, high on a pedestal, something to be admired, a beacon for all. But my admirers in the outside world don’t yet know what lies inside. In fact, I, don’t really know what lies inside. You see, I’ve been so well hidden that even I can’t find the real me. Who is this person so carefully enshrined in all this parchment?
I start to feel like I’m constricted and suffocating. I have an overwhelming urge to venture out; I need to discover what lies within. I need some danger, I need to live.
Although I don’t have an organized plan; I have an overwhelming feeling - a feeling so strong and an energy so powerful that it simply begins to move on its own. Possibly it was the Danger sign that attracted me; possibly it was the sensuousness of the hot, steamy, summer afternoon; possibly it was the excitement of being offered a forbidden fruit. Maybe I was ready, ripe for the picking, tired of balancing myself up on that pedestal for so long.
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