We got a new curriculum this year in AP Language and Composition. They handed us Momaday’s “The Way to Rainy Mountain,” and it was not only beautifully transcendent, but it taught me something I was trying to figure out about my writing post-pandemic. It’s changed, for sure. I want to tell different stories. I connect to life in a different way. But how to express that? I feel like I finally have a way in Momaday’s example. Or at least something I want to play with.
At the end of the semester each year, we always do an “open mic day” with the students where we all share our creative work – of all kinds. I shared the prologue to “Easterbay,” though I desperately wanted to share this one with them, to show them how I have been interpreting and using the work we’re reading together. However… it’s both political and religious. So, out of the classroom it stays. Bummer. There was quite a kerfuffle when they found out I was a self-published novelist with a blog, though, so I have a feeling some might find their way here. If AP Lang is here, this one is for you. If you are not from AP Lang, please note how facts, personal narrative, and foundational mythology are woven into one thing in an attempt to make a single claim (you can decide if I’m successful or not – Momaday is, this is my first attempt and I might not be there yet). Or don’t… you can also just enjoy it and not go all English Literature on it. Whatever you prefer.
Banana Feelings:
January 30, 2020, marks the first recorded person-to-person spread of the Novel Coronavirus in the United States, bringing the total number of infected up to seven.
The grocery store is getting apocalyptic again. There is a line of people standing outside, a masked employee in a Hawaiian shirt at the sliding door, beckoning people in slowly, marching us all forward in increments. The bright colors of the early pandemic days are gone – masks are N-19 now, and everyone in line looks muzzled. We stand on our peeling tape, elastic pulling at our temples. One man’s grizzled gray hair peeks out from the thicker elastic of his face shield, and his hands are clad in yellow rubber dish gloves. The door slides open with a whoosh, and then closed again. If there is anything I have learned these last few years, it’s that you do not need either hope or faith to keep showing up, to keep doing the next needed thing. And right now I need to get groceries. With an N-19 mask on.
And it came to pass, that, when Jesus was returned, the people gladly received him: for they were all waiting for him.
And, behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue: and he fell down at Jesus’ feet, and besought him that he would come into his house:
For he had one only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she lay a dying. But as he went the people thronged him.
When it is my turn at the front of the grocery line, I see that there are unstocked shelves, places the freezers are bare, only two bags of my favorite popcorn available.
But they DO have a bag of popcorn this time, and a small stash of Babybel cheeses in the back of the cheese case. A few plastic packages of pork chops teeter on top of each other, the replacement cereal we decided is good enough is abundant. There are canned goods galore, and I pick up Angel Hair pasta instead of Spaghetti. They have enough of what we usually get.
I turn the corner to the produce aisle and see the banana towers, as if tiered cake stands were person-height and bananas were artfully arranged on them. There are two because there are two kinds of bananas – regular and organic. Today the regular bananas are sparse and spotted, bruised, turning, good for banana bread, maybe. They waft their sweet scent into the air. The organic bananas are not impressed, they are immovably and bitterly green on their own tier. Both are inedible as is. And so I opt for the organic bananas because I have a small tow-headed boy at home who definitely wants bananas and the green ones will eventually be eatable.
On March 11, 2020, the CDC declares Covid-19 a worldwide pandemic. On May 12, 2020, Dr. Anthony Fauci testifies to Congress that the US death toll of 80,000 people from Covid-19 has likely been underestimated.
And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any,
Came behind him, and touched the border of his garment: and immediately her issue of blood stanched.
And Jesus said, Who touched me? When all denied, Peter and they that were with him said, Master, the multitude throng thee and press thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me?
And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched me: for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me.
And when the woman saw that she was not hid, she came trembling, and falling down before him, she declared unto him before all the people for what cause she had touched him, and how she was healed immediately.
And he said unto her, Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.
In the grocery store there are no hems to touch.
When I get home with the groceries, the small boy digs through the brown paper bags that I have set on the tile kitchen floor. He knows there will be bananas, and maybe other treasures as well. Vanilla mock-Oreos, or maybe some salami. I start to put the refrigerator things in their places.
“Can I have a banana break?” he asks when I pull them out and place them in the fruit bowl.
“Love, they’re green. They won’t taste very good right now.”
“I want a banana,” he says.
Dad chimes in from the other room, “The bananas are sad right now. We will have to wait to eat them.”
“Mom,” this little boy says to me. He is serious.
“Yes?”
“The bananas are sad. I will cheer them up.”
He goes to grab two toy planes, one for the bananas and one for himself. He pushes the second plane to the fruit bowl. He sings, he dances, he flashes his charming smile. The bananas remain green. He is sad that he still cannot eat a banana.
“Oh honey, that’s not really… sometimes bananas can’t be cheered up. Sometimes bananas will be sad for a few days,” I say.
Dad talks with him about the qualities of sadness. Sometimes the things you love are just sad. Sometimes sad things can’t be cheered up. Sometimes you have to wait and love bananas from afar, and check again in a few days to see if they feel better. And if they don’t, you don’t have to stop loving bananas, you just have to wait again. Waiting is hard. But eventually, we won’t have to wait anymore.
The small boy comes to me again, when I am folding the brown paper bags for the recycling bin. “Mom, we can’t cheer the bananas up,” he says. “They’re just sad.”
In December of 2020, the US passes the grim milestone of 2 million people killed by the virus. The FDA uses emergency approvals to allow US Citizens to be vaccinated with several different brands of Covid-19 vaccines.
While he yet spake, there cometh one from the ruler of the synagogue’s house, saying to him, Thy daughter is dead; trouble not the Master.
But when Jesus heard it, he answered him, saying, Fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole.
And when he came into the house, he suffered no man to go in, save Peter, and James, and John, and the father and the mother of the maiden.
And all wept, and bewailed her: but he said, Weep not; she is not dead, but sleepeth.
And they laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was dead.
And he put them all out, and took her by the hand, and called, saying, Maid, arise.
And her spirit came again, and she arose straightway: and he commanded to give her meat.
And her parents were astonished: but he charged them that they should tell no man what was done.
Two years ago, I believed that being alive was similar enough to being whole.
On Tuesday, November 3, Americans voted for their next president, electing Joseph Biden over Donald Trump. On January 6th, the US Congress met to certify the results of the election.
It is three days after the green bananas when white supremacists attempt a coup on the government. My mind is on the pictures of smoke billowing over the nation’s capital, fretting over the injured capital police, glad the vote happened after all. I wonder what, if anything, I should tell this child who is so young. It’s lunchtime. I hand him a banana without thinking about it much. They’re yellow at this point, or at least yellow enough for passing. I pull out the supplies for PBJ. I wonder if it feels different in Washington now that something sacred has been violated.
“Mom?” the boy says, his eyes lighting up.
I refocus, pull my mind from Washington. It’s here now, with this small boy who is asking me a question. I see him, holding his whole banana in the kitchen, dark cabinets framing his gold hair, the smell of dish soap and fruit, the way his favorite, too-small cat pajamas cling to his shins. “Yes?”
“Are the bananas happy again?”
“Yes, the bananas are happy, you can eat one.”
“The bananas are happy,” he sighs like all is right in the world. “They cheered up. I will eat them.” He bites into one, holding the rest of the white crescent in his left hand. The sweet smell of them rises up and it’s strong.
But when Jesus heard it, he answered him, saying, Fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole.
There are no answers. I have nothing about the big things to offer this small one; not the virus or the government, or the grocery shelves. The world is on fire, but the bananas are happy. I can give him a happy banana. And for two moments in time, that is enough.