Obsession

I woke up in the middle of the night, once, twice, got up, returned to bed, got up again, each time thinking about grapes.

Grapes, at the outdoor markets of Vienna, plump grapes, yellow Muscats, green, red varieties, the kind that when you take a bite, the juice squirts in your mouth, the skin recedes, the flesh melts into sweetness.

Grapes, one strand taken by me from someone’s fridge early on Tuesday, stealthily, then openly. Delicious, firm, irresistible so that I ate them almost instantly.

A friend (is it okay that I call you that?) asked me to go apple buying next week, over at a nearby orchard. Sure, I said. Apples. It is the season. Still, the grapes remained there, firmly wedged in my mind.

I retrieved one photo from this Saturday, I studied it but could make no improvements. It shows them off as they are – plump, perfect.




This morning I am hoping to fill my head with competing images. I need to do my presentation downtown, I’ll walk up and down the streets of this neighborhood, surely I will pay attention to the colors of fall, to the pumpkins on doorsteps, surely I will focus on life around me.

I don’t think so. I am destined today to again return to images of grapes. I can tell.

[Is this post really about grapes? Oh yes. Though you could well substitute the word grapes for your favorite obsession and it would probably work.]