Silliest bristle came over me, like a yearn to wear a negligee to church, or eat ants. I can't remember who first gave me pause in an earnest sense of how to live life justly or fully. Not sure which one I'd want more. Doesn't matter, I suppose. My morals keep becoming reconfigured. It's difficult knowing who might be heroic, or who might be manipulating mass appeal in order to boost book sales. I think I just want some new exotic flavor, that rush of tasting avocado for the first time. That really happened to me, you know. I never knew the taste of avocado until I was nineteen and moved to California. It was not common at the time in New Jersey, or at least I had never had it. Never even heard of it, really.

I landed a job as a prep cook and dishwasher at a little mom and pop joint that catered to a mostly lunch crowd from the county court house. It was a quaint little town in the Sierra Nevadas. Townsfolk consisted of artists, musicians, gold miners, hippie marijuana propagators, and lumberjacks. Mostly, at that time, there were the good old boys, Republicans who held most political offices and police positions, and the newbies, attracted to the area by some new age communes, a Democrat influx. I fit into the newbie category, though it was a girl I followed there, not a guru. And of all the outstanding romances had, through the twenty five some years spent in California, none have lasted as long as my love affair with the avocado. It's a certain jolt I feel when guacamole passes through my lips, squishes around my mouth, and lands within an empty belly. I was beside myself in wonder, that very first day such a taste hit me. Now, being back in New Jersey, but not devoid of such illustrious fruit, I wonder where it is I stand on more matters of what it is to live justly or fully? Where is after here? I even see one of those new age communes has moved in down the street. Though I have my guacamole, I'm feeling less fulfilled.