July 31, 2015
(If we live with an open and grateful attitude, every day will bring a gift. This is one of 365 gifts during the year I turned
70.)
My mother always told me to eat my veggies—that
they would help me grow— but she did not tell me about their other lives. I
would learn this later from a man who showed me the intimate essence of
vegetables (and fruit). He presented a green pepper, naked, light entwining the
curves of its body. My eyes savored a journey over a smooth green landscape and
discovered subtle nuances beyond the surface. Sensuous rhythms pulsed in me as
I imagined a tactile gliding, encircling the rise and fall of the skin. I
discovered how light licked undulating curves and how shadows slid silently
into folds.
With his black and white photograph of a green pepper,
photographer Edward Weston awakened my senses and led me to feast on
possibilities of experience. If an ordinary green pepper can offer itself as
sumptuous, both as food and sensory experience, what can other ordinary things
offer? I began to go beyond looking and to relish seeing as a sensual
experience. Ever since I saw Weston’s erotic green pepper photograph, I have
never taken any vegetable (or fruit) for granted and I have never looked at a
green pepper in the same way. This union of vision and desire gave birth to a
new way of seeing and experiencing life in multiple layers. Veggies and fruit
are delicious love affairs.
Today I understood when David came home from the
grocery store with a very special peach.
My
gift today is a horny peach.
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Edward Weston’s Pepper No. 30, 1927: https://www.artsy.net/artwork/edward-weston-pepper-no-30
You can find links to my other posts on this project here: