Growing up, I always knew that I was drawn to the hippy aesthetic. I just never thought the problem would get so serious.
This morning -- ahem -- afternoon I was deciding on breakfast. Usually I deliberate a while. Eggs are too heavy, oatmeal too bland, peanut butter and jelly too decadent. Then I saw the apples. Nestled in the fruitbowl between aging lemons and an abandoned redskin potato were three petite, lovely little apples I'd bought at the farmers market the day before.
I bought them on site, but the habit was new. The letting go of money thing is still an issue and the miniscule fruits had cost $2.20 - surely they should be no more than 59 cents each! Then again, this morning it was easy to justify the past expense. I happily plucked one of the three yellow-and-peach-hued apples from the fruitbowl.
Biting into the tart, magenta-centered treat, I wondered why I'd been able to decide on a breakfast choice so quickly and with such certainty. The answer came at once. I picked the apple because it was "natural." I knew that it came from a local farm. I'd spoken with the growers who cultivated them. I imagined too, though I had no reason to hold this belief, that they were grown in smaller numbers and with more love and care than their conventional cousins.
I know. Hideous, right? Why couldn't I just grab a cheeseburger and call it a day? The hippy in me was winning out and, in retrospect, I should have seen the signs.
But -- mmmmmmm -- if old, non-hippy-me wouldn't have bought these bubblegum-inked, sunflower-speckled, juicy, mouthwatering, tart-as-day apples, and if new, hippy-me would...well, that's pretty groovy. Isn't there some saying about the goodness of having an apple a day?
Now shhhhhh. Peace, man. I'm eating.