Like many Americans, my heart has been in near-constant danger of shriveling up like a raisin in the sun over the past several years. Anger and frustration have been like (free!) apps running in the background: I’m mature enough not to open them in the presence of loved ones but not wise enough to offload them, apparently. I can’t decide if they are there to teach me something, if they are necessary fuel for my righteous outrage, or if they are merely draining my charge.
Being a raisin seems safer than being a grape (to return to my original simile): you can’t rot, can’t get squashed, and it’s virtually impossible to peel you. I have often been tempted by these promises of raisinhood. It doesn’t seem like raisins experience pain the same way as do grapes, and they no longer feel conflicted about their anger and frustration apps (I know you follow me).
So far, I have managed to avoid complete dehydration (but only in the metaphorical sense–I should really drink more water). Paradoxically, my tears seem to have the effect of rehydrating my spirit. They leave me ready to try again, to re-enter the arena without the aid of weapons my opponents seem all too eager to use, to believe in the magic that raisins can actually turn back into grapes.
This morning, I felt the sun on the back of my neck and, to be honest, I was afraid. It wasn’t the kind of scorching sun that threatened to zap my heart into a small, wrinkly sugar-nugget, but rather a furiously generative blaze that I knew I shouldn’t resist. To not come when called by the birdsong of spring is a uniquely human folly, after all. We aren’t sure where it will lead us. We’ve seen such exuberance end in heartbreak before. We’re afraid that, if we grow and lean too much towards the sun, we might lose our stability. We’re afraid of being cut down. We’re afraid we’ll be seen.
I am afraid. But I also suspect that life as a raisin gets really old, really fast.