Time Travel - Taste

Die Eisdiele – one of the delights of Germany. Ice cream parlors. They are everywhere. And rain or shine, they have business in this ice cream-loving nation. Or so it seems. Well, it was at an Eisdiele that I once travelled through time. We stood there, trying to decide what flavor we wanted – forever an enormous challenge. I tasted several and chose passionfruit.
After a few licks, “We had a passionfruit tree just outside our house in Zambia.”
The words came out before I really thought them.
“Every once in a while, we heard a loud bang on the tin roof of our front porch and would know that one of the little hard-shelled fruits had shaken loose and fallen to the ground.”
They streamed from somewhere deep inside me. I was there.
“I’d go out to look for the newly-fallen fruit. More often than not, my neighbor found it first. She had a tin roof, too. It was connected to ours.”
I was then.
It was a kind of friendly competition that I didn’t mind losing. My neighbor made drinks from the juice of the passionfruit and shared it with me. How many did you collect for this batch? I’d ask. Seven. Came the answer. Seven!? Thanks for sharing.
Our houses also shared: a thin wall and even a door. I could hear her and her husband singing as they cooked. A lovely sound. I delighted in the smell of the bread she was baking; it lured me to the screen that separated our adjacent porches. Hi. A knowing smile and she shared her bread. I wondered at times if it was that delicious because her hands had kneaded the dough into a soft ball and the warmth of the Zambian sun had made it rise. Equally delicious was our fellowship over meals. They shared their food. Foreign food made familiar by warm, welcoming hearts serving it. Their hospitality was sweet and comfortable like a cushion that you sink a little deeper into every time you come. I came a lot. Can you teach me some Bemba songs? We sang and sang and sang, right there on the porch at the dinner table, over dirty dishes. (They can always wait.) I still sing those songs now. They shared their voices and their language. They shared their space, their time, and their hearts.
We shared life during that pinpoint-size spot of time. And loved it.
“That’s a sweet memory,” she said.
Her words carried me back to here and now, the layers of memory rushing by me like a brief gust of wind.
“Yeah… it is.” I hear myself say.

A memory. I readjusted my vision to the current. For a moment my head (or was it my heart?) ached. Time travel is not without its side effects. 

 10/9/2017

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