Sable Monroe

Someone once gave my grandmother a bag of mangoes.

She took them politely.

Then she gave me a look that said:

What am I supposed to do with these?

I remember being confused.

They were perfectly good mangoes.

Small, maybe. Not the best kind. But still fruit.

At the time, I thought she was being dramatic.

Now I live in America.

Now I understand.

Because what she was reacting to wasn’t the fruit.

It was abundance.

In Jamaica, fruit didn’t feel precious.

Fruit felt ordinary.

You could have opinions.

You could reject mangoes because they were too fibrous.
Too small.
Wrong variety.
Not sweet enough.
Not worth cutting.

That sounds ridiculous now.

These days if somebody handed me a random bag of mangoes in America, I’d probably react like they handed me luxury goods.

Forget preference.
Forget standards.

Thank you.
I’ll take them.

That’s one of the strange things migration changes.

Not just what you eat.

But what feels normal.

I don’t miss fruit.

I miss the confidence of abundance.

I miss assuming there would always be more.

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