escaping tomatoes

Tomatoes. The frozen kind. Red hard cricket balls, expertly bowled towards me… as I carefully protect my wicket, dive desperately around the goal posts, keep my gloves up – swinging, guarding my face.

It was a nightmare. I’m not sure when I got scared of tomatoes, (or when I started using sports imagery). Did one bash me on the forehead, or was it more of a slow bombardment? Either way the tomatoes were terrifying. If one hit me; it might crack open a gaping weakness, burst into a horrible truth, the world might end or - god forbid - make me a bit uncomfortable.

To be called ‘emotional’ is an insult, your judgement is in question. ‘Feelings’ are female, inferior, weak, and not cool. So I dodged the emotional tomatoes; I dodged hard and I ducked fast. I developed ridiculous reflexes and a rubber spine. Yep, the barrage of cherry bullets whizzed past harmlessly, miles off target.

I learnt to evade emotions from some pretty good dodgers, escapologists of note. Keep manically busy. Watch mindless TV. Read trashy novels. Attend nights of prayer. Cook and clean obsessively. Work past 5. Party hard. Change the subject. Gossip about melodrama. Etc.

I even bought in extreme measures. Avoid the feeling by; researching it, write a report on it, talk about it. Elude any sensation by; taking a photo of it, blog post it, give it a scientific name.

Such surreal-ness couldn’t last forever and I was woken up by a big sloppy tomato smacking me in the face. I felt it. Juices dribbling down, wet and pungent. Another one hit me on the arm, a bright explosion of vitality, a burst of meaning. I bared my chest happily for the approaching bombshell.


Sources:
'We live in deeds, not years' by Philip James Bailey > website link
'Walking Wounded' by Acacia, Nov 2008 > website link