Grapefruit league

Eleven years ago, I spent a week in Chicago
working as a reporter for WBBM-AM. I liked everything about Chicago --
the stories I covered (a drug bust, a fire at a chocolate factory, a rally
for an Arkansas governor who'd decided to run for president), the pizza,
the way everything on television came on an hour earlier, even a little
coffee shop I discovered called Starbucks (I wondered if we'd ever have them
on the East Coast). I've never been an early riser, but I didn't mind
waking up at 4 a.m. to catch the train to work. It made me feel exciting,
and sophisticated, and competent -- things I didn't often feel when I was
nineteen years old.

Mostly, though, I liked living with my aunt and uncle. During the week
I lived with them, my Uncle Ed and Aunt Pat took me to visit the Sears Tower,
the Institute of Art, the Miller Brewery in Milwaukee, the Ba'hai Temple,
and Mr. T's neighborhood. (They knew what I wanted to see, and not
necessarily in that order). What I remember most about my trip, though,
was the time we spent together at their home in Deerfield. We baked cookies,
watched Star Trek, and every chance that I could, I'd have breakfast
with Uncle Ed.

Every morning, he'd slice a grapefruit in half, cut the half into
sections, sprinkle the whole thing with sugar, and dig in. I'd never been
what you'd call a healthy eater -- the closest I came to having fruit in the
morning was usually Apple Jacks -- but I tried Uncle Ed's favorite
breakfast, and damned if it wasn't pretty good. I ate a grapefruit almost
every day while I was in Chicago, and resolved to continue the habit
after I returned home.

It's hard to commit to a particular diet when you're living on a college
meal plan. Kenyon's cafeteria was better than most; even so, grapefruits
-- when they were available at all -- tended to be mealy, tough, and warm.
I didn't begin eating citrus regularly again until three years later,
when I was visiting a friend in Los Angeles. I couldn't get over the smell
of the fruit when I found some in a grocery store one evening. When I
spooned the thick pink pulp into my mouth the next morning, I felt I'd
fallen in love, and decided I'd never let another morning go by without a
grapefruit for breakfast.

It didn't last.

It's not that I didn't try. Something would inspire me -- a trip to
Florida, a visit to a Bread and Circus, a man dressed as a lobster hawking
bottles of Ruby Red outside a convenience store (it's a long story) -- and
for the next few days, I'd be leaving bowls of sugary seeds in the sink,
and my garbage would be redolent with the sweet smell of grapefruit rind,
and I'd feel like I was accomplishing something with my life, or at least
my breakfast.

And then, things would get busy. When you have stories to cover, papers
to grade, relationships to manage and dreams to pursue, it's sometimes easier
to snarf down a Frosted Chocolate Fudge Pop-Tart and Diet Pepsi than it is
to carefully slice each section of a softball-sized fruit, trying not to
drench yourself with juice in the process. I don't like to think about the
number of breakfasts-in-the-car, or vending machine breakfasts, or
leftover-cake-and-Kool-Aid breakfasts I've consumed during the last few years.

I'm not very good at establishing good habits. I'm very good at
maintaining bad habits (ask anyone who tries to come between me and sweet,
sweet Vanilla Coke). But it's taken me years to develop a regular running
schedule -- and even now, I still miss a couple of days every week. I've
been trying for the better part of a year now to commit myself to writing
for a certain period of time and a certain number of pages every day. It's
hard. It means I have to put other aspects of my life -- aspects I happen
to enjoy, aspects that mean a lot to me -- on the back burner. It means I
have to write when I'm not in the mood, when I don't have time, when I'm
questioning everything about myself, when I'm thinking about giving up on
this whole writing project and going into retail. Or middle management.
I think I'd be a terrific middle manager.

And then one morning I wake up and notice that the short story I've been
working on is like a clogged toilet -- it still sucks, but not as noticeably
as it did before. And then I realize that I've begun thinking in similes,
and that's what writers do, isn't it? I'm so happy that I decide to go
running, and ten minutes into my run it occurs to me that I, a dedicated
night owl, am now running before ten o'clock in the morning for the second
time in two weeks. And suddenly I'm no longer thinking about my run, or
clogged toilets, because I'm thinking about the story I'd like to write --
and before I know it it's actually down on paper, and it isn't until the
story is done, or a good portion of it, anyway, and I'm sitting down to a
dinner that these days actually includes vegetables and doesn't come
wrapped in cellophane that I recognize: something has changed.

Something is happening.

And I like it.

I'm still not quite where I want to be. The Dark Side is calling ("Stay
in bed," it moans. "Watch Blind Date. Develop new and distracting
hobbies that have nothing to do with anything you want to accomplish."
"Eat Spam.") I still don't know if I'll be able to stick to my guns once
I'm out of school, and no longer able to schedule my days the way I like.
All I can do is to keep trying the thing that works for as long as it does,
to be patient with the way life works, to celebrate the little victories
that seem to happen when I'm not looking for them, and to eat a grapefruit
now and then. I hear they're good for you.