Seed
Never have I found peace in the place where I am, never have I been content, never have I been calm or have found it easy to acknowledge happiness, it is only later, in memories, that a certain month or a moment, or a room or a place could appear as sweetness and light. So have I always been nostalgic, aching for what is gone, missing the irretrievable, searching for the lost time in flour or salt or a fruit associated with a childhood rhyme.
A seed is mighty enough to evoke the whole childhood, to pull it out of the dark caverns of adult consciousness and display it in front of the eyes in a succession of images. My uncle used to ask me a riddle about the seed of the peach found in the plum, how can one find seed of the peach in the plum? He had a sing song way of going about the riddle and I giggled, “I don’t know”, I would say and he would ask again every time we ate a plum.
It was a mystery, how is the seed of one fruit found in another? Are they related? Did someone do this mischief? But then how did he put the fruit back together without any visible cracks? Did someone plant a peach tree and plums grew on it instead? I could never answer the riddle, he didn’t tell me or I might have chosen to forget the answer, but that is how I remember my childhood, confused between peach and plum seeds.
Recently during a psychological test, I was asked to imagine a seed, and the peach seed surfaced- hard, crooked, sturdy, embodying rested potential, then the seed morphed into a retreat, a hiding place, a reservoir of dull ache, and lostness found in the eyes of a four year old. Who put it there? Is this lostness akin to that mysterious seed? Found in the wrong girl? Where did it come from?
The seeds looked similar, one just a more ridged version of the other. Someone might have mistaken peach seeds for plum and planted them expecting plums. It is a plausible explanation. As far as the lostness in the eyes is concerned, it could just be a reflection of what she saw or an effect of how she was seen.