25 Minutes On: These Three Pears
By Mecca Bos, Editor-At-Large
Chef, writer, and Meal Magazine Editor-at-Large Mecca Bos has been penning a series of personal stories during the pandemic, all originally published on her personal Facebook page. We’re proud to cross-publish the series here on Meal Digital, starting with this story from mid-March 2020, when the full scale of the pandemic was becoming clear. — Ed.
These three pears predate the coronavirus. Which is to say, they predate the coronavirus as we knew it. As these pears were sitting in my walk-in, snug in a case with their comrades, the virus was doing what it does all over the world. It might have been doing whatever it does in my neighborhood, my house, and hell, who knows, my own lungs.
These three pears were just chilling on their soft, purple packing cushion, waiting to get eaten. To get packed into a boxed lunch, to get cut up onto a fruit platter, for me to just eat — pears are one of the few fruits I actually like. (Don’t hassle me. I’m grown.)
I’ve been thinking about all of the little dramas that are playing themselves out behind The Big Drama. We might have imagined that life as we know it has ground to a halt, but nothing could be further from the truth. All of life’s dramas are still playing themselves out, and in many cases, have become more amplified than ever. The good news is, the good things are amplified for the better, just as the bad are potentially amplified for the worse.
I think of a friend whose dad had to enter a nursing home (non-Covid related), and how his wife of fifty years can’t participate in getting him settled in because of quarantine protocols. Or my other friend, who can’t keep her beautiful shaved head maintainenanced, because no haircuts. Or the dead in New Orleans, who can’t get a jazz funeral. The jazz musicians who had this coming as their birthright. Who are now dead. Can’t have this singular ritual that a lifetime of creating audible joy has earned them. Or more personal stories that involve family separation and deep, gutteral, eviscerating fear that makes me too afraid to contemplate. So instead I send a text, pour a glass, wash a dish, clip a toenail.
I also think of the kids playing everything all over the city, the dogs so happy their humans are home all the time, the lovers who yearn to be together so badly that it’s almost a physical pain. Imagine how good it’s gonna be.
I haven’t been eating anything really worth posting, and the last thing I’m doing is cooking. Which is a shame, because cooking is the thing that makes me feel alive and worthwhile.
I haven’t been eating anything really worth posting, and the last thing I’m doing is cooking. Which is a shame, because cooking is the thing that makes me feel alive and worthwhile. The day we shuttered our kitchen, I drank too much, and laid on my back on the couch, and let the tears flow with such deluge that they pooled into my ears. I don’t remember the last time I cried, and there would have been nothing I could have done to stop it.
Dinners of potato chips, knobs of bread with weird cheese, and a cucumber to keep me sane are pretty much my meals, and they serve me pretty well. I like them, even. Salt, and crunch, and my one true love — dairy — are all I really need to eat, I’m discovering. Accompanied by some bubbles, just to make sure I’m staying civilized in my feral state.
In this bubble of mine, with the four walls and the creature comforts I’m beyond lucky to have, and the choice to eat an unhealthy meal, I’m thinking of the nurse who died in New York because he didn’t have appropriate gear; the 17-year-old who died in New Orleans; and the 45-year-old journalist who just went through a healthcare nightmare but is expected to recover. I’m thinking about you, in your bubbles, and the elders you’re caring for, and the kids who don’t understand what’s happening but are so scared, and the haircuts and massages we can’t get, and the loved ones we can’t bury, and the weddings postponed, and the kids who will have their birthday parties “virtually.”
I’m also thinking about the roads that will be closed to cars, the old ladies walking their dogs who stop six feet away from me to tell me how pretty my dress is, and the little kids who run up to me and their parents who admonish them to “keep their distance.” I wanna hug you, too, kid. And we’re going to. I promise, we’re going to.
I don’t want to eat these three pears. I keep pushing them around on my countertop and thinking about all they’ve seen. They’re doing their thing — getting ripe, and old, and eventually they’ll cease to exist. As we all will.
But in the meantime, they keep on doing their thing.