Your birthday
Today is your birthday and, just like any other, my story is about you.
Born only eleven months apart, every May when I am about to catch up with your years, your birthday is around the corner. And again, you’re one step ahead of me.
Everyone always called us twins. Even Mum often mistook my voice for yours on the phone; and yours for mine. But for our manners and our values, we couldn’t be more different now, could we? You’re thinking square when I’m going in circles; your feet firmly on the ground of our little hometown when my head is in the clouds; your messy room, my spotless one; your perfect handwriting, my messy one.
And that… that love of yours for canned fruit which I could never understand!
Always with a childish excitement you’d say, “I’m going downstairs to grandma and grandpa’s, they’re eating canned apricot”. And there was I, with a lazy absentmindedness, reading a book or doing homework (belatedly), waiting for Dad to come home after work. Every night he would peel fresh fruit while watching telly. He would reach out to hand me a slice of apple, a piece of orange, half a tangerine. Sometimes he would ask me to share a banana with him. You almost never ate fruit with us. Instead you’d say “I’m going to grandpa’s, grandpa said he’ll open a can of peach to eat”…
And then, last year, when your visited me in Japan, we finally took the trip of our dream of ten years. That night we got stranded in some street of Kyoto, I couldn’t believe what your hands picked up from the shelf of the convenience store: out of all the things you could have chosen… 梨の缶詰. Your eyes sparkled as you shoved the tin in my face exclaiming “This is so rare in Greece! Buy it for me!”. I laughed half in wonder half in amusement. That night we ate canned fruit together. The sweetest taste I can remember, literally and metaphorically.
But when we returned home to Yokohama, you bought another one. And another one. Busy as we were, sightseeing, eating out and showing you around my new life, eventually, you never opened the last tin.
condensed love, pure,
no preservatives!
CANNED SISTERHOOD
best before: nostalgia hits
This last one, still stands, to this day. Many a time I took it in my hand when I needed something sweet, a pick-me-up, a little something to satisfy the craving. I always put it back, this part of you that I cannot bring myself to consume. I look at the tiny can of ridiculously sweet pear in my hand and think I would feel sorry to throw the empty package away. It would be a shame to eat it now after having kept it for so long. Maybe I’ll wait until the next time you visit me. Maybe I’ll just wait for you. The canned fruit will last long. Just like us.
