There is a fruit cart near the 2 train at 135th Street in Harlem that I walk past most mornings without noticing.
Today I noticed.
The man had mangoes. Small, slightly bruised, the kind that look apologetic next to the glossy imports at Whole Foods. But I know that shape. That is a mango that has been alive.
I bought two for three dollars. He wrapped them in a thin blue plastic bag like they were nothing, and I held that bag on the 2 train all the way downtown like it was a secret.
Here is the thing about a mango from a Harlem fruit cart when you grew up in Ahmedabad. It is never just a mango. My Papa used to bring home a whole crate in May and my Ma would soak them in water first, always, because that is what her mother taught her. We ate them over the sink, shirts off, juice down our wrists.
I ate mine standing at my kitchen counter in my studio, over the sink, exactly like that. Nobody taught me to do it here. My body just remembered.
That is the strange math of living in New York. You can go weeks being efficient and cold and very good at your emails, and then a three-dollar mango from a Harlem fruit cart near the 2 train takes you apart in your own kitchen at 8 in the morning.
I was almost late for work. I did not care.
I texted my Ma a photo of the peel in the sink. She replied, "you did not soak it." Of course she did. Of course she knew.
Some mornings the city hands you your childhood in a blue plastic bag and asks for three dollars.
Pay it every time.
Love,