I am handed

A mango

Everyone around me has one

I glance at how they hold it

Tightly in their grasp

I squeeze

I peek

They cut into it

Knives that are set aside

I prepare to copy them, teeth set

They scoop it out

The flesh

Bright

Orange

Flesh

Stuck to it was the green peel

I peek about

Some try bites

They taste the green

It stains their teeth

They stop eating, the taste ruined

Others tear the peel away

Leaving wasted meat attached

I stare at mine

Unable to choose

Reading Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath left me with an image, but unlike the one she was describing, looking at the fig tree, I was standing over my sink trying to ascertain how to cut into a mango. Either way I would go about it, it would be difficult. Either decision I made, additional fruit would be wasted.  I was frozen, with such an inconsequential decision, on how I would go about it. Life isn’t just an arrangement of choices before you, but one decision at a time, difficult and still simple, with differences seemingly innocuous. What did it matter what city I lived in? Yet it could and should certainly affect who I marry, how my career develops, what graduate school I go to, what experiences I have that lead to writings, and if or how I become a published author.

This is all determined by a few choices that will happen early on, and it could all start with one. I stare at my choices, difficult as they are, because of the work involved, and what stakes they will lead to. And yet….it all starts with one choice.

Should I?