ok, now for something good -- pears

so this imperfect produce thing has been interesting
i discovered dates
and that i won't eat kale
that their tomatoes and peaches are not good
and that their bell peppers are of inconsistent quality

but
they gave me back pears

when i was a kid
i lived with my gran gran
and she hated to cook
so
truthfully
i eat a lot of canned and packaged foods
but one of the things i loved
that i had forgotten about
was canned pears

packed in juice rather than syrup, i hope
but i'm not 100% sure

canned pears are soft
they are sweet
but
there's a delicate quality--  ethereal, like
there's nothing quite like them

not even "real" pears
when i went to live with my mom
she hated to cook too
[not a familial thing
gran gran was my dad's mom]

she would buy big blocks of cheese
and turkey ham
and cottage cheese
and fruit
and you could just go at it

or
if she cooked
she'd make a giant stock pot
of either chicken soup
or tapioca pudding
[which she invariably scorched]
and then we'd just eat that for all meals
until it was gone

pears were one of the fruits
and i remember thinking how different they were than the canned ones
so much earthier
so much less ethereal
but the juice would run down my face
and they were so satisfying
and they were "real"
so i swore off the canned ones

but
then i began having problems with pears
[after i was an adult and buying my own groceries]
i would buy them
and they would go from being rock hard
to being rotten
with no step in between
where they were actually edible
after this happened a bunch of times

i stopped buying pears
and
i mean it's probably been thirty years
i figured it was the whole
pick it before it's ripe
spray it with something so it doesn't ripen
then spray it with something so it will ripen
was just confusing the poor fruit
it wasn't it's fault
but
i wasn't playing that game anymore


and i was taking em off the list for the imperfect produce, at first
but then one week
there were apples and pears and mangos
that was it for fruit
so
i would normally take all those off
then i would have no fruit

i checked the apples
i only eat a few varieties of apple
they had granny smith and red delicious
i don't eat those

i took off apples and left pears and mangos
mangos are too sweet, too messy
i don't like them that much

as it turns out i do
nothing wrong with them

the pears though
have been amazing
soft and juicy

and today
when i was eating lunch
i ate my mango
and my two tiny avocados
and two pears
and as i was cutting the core out
and eating the cut up pieces
rather than biting into it and having it run all down my face
i experienced that ethereal quality of the pears
i had forgotten it
didn't expect it
wasn't looking for it
bliss