My friend the Filipino Bombshell, who's never been able to explain why the "Ph"ilipines are spelled differently than "F"ilipinos, invited me to a memoir writing workshop at Hunter College. I thought it might be for graduate students, but it turned out to be for eighteen year-old kids who hadn't picked a major yet.
While no writing exercise can be a waste of time to a writer, because, after all, exercise counts too, I might offer the opinion that maybe this wasn't exactly at a level that would benefit me. And worse, I probably came across as a bit of a bully, since the kids in the workshop mostly only wrote when their teachers made them.
That being said, the assignment called for us to write about "the first time we tried ginger." Of course, my piece quickly turned indecent.
Read this in mind that I read tihs piece aloud to a table full of undergrads, with a spread of chocolate chip cookies on the table in front of us.
The First Time I Ever Had Ginger
Asha held up a fresh piece of sashimi to my mouth. “Come on,” she said, “open up.”
“What is it?” I asked, and even as I pronounced the words, she forced the sticky rice against my front teeth.
“It’s food,” she said, “That’s what it is.”
“It’s not going to kill me?” I asked.
“No, it’s going to do the opposite of kill you.”
She smiled a half smile, all mouth and not the twinkle in the eye that’s the real lie detector.
I opened slowly, she pressed the tuna onto my tongue, and I held it, licking her fingertip as she pulled out of my mouth.
She watched me chew, not the worst I’d ever had. Some elements of water, freshness, even. This was tolerable. I could do this again. I looked down her mouth, traced my thumb against the outside of her cheek, hooked that digit underneath the shoulder strap of her bra, barely teasing out of the creases of her v-neck sweater, and said, “Yeah, I could do that again.”
“No,” she said, picking up a piece of white ginger from the sushi plate. “No, you can’t. Not before you cleanse your palette.”
Her eyes twinkled and my teeth parted, and I ate the ginger with one strong bite. |
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