Tasting Life — Can You Taste Life?

“Life is food?” Ingrid asked in confusion her eyes glaring at Tessa.

Tessa, Josie, and Lynx listened attentively to Ingrid Mc Callumn for ten minutes, as she attempted to sell them an investment before they decided what to order inside Sanjay’s Indian restaurant.

“All you guys have to do is take the $10, 000 from your IRA, group it up, and invest that $30, 000. I guarantee in two years I will double with your money in my company’s Crowdfunding projects,” she finished.

Tessa Lensworth, one of the three friends listened attentively, absorbing everything she said, then remarked, “I don’t like the taste of that.”

“You mean the sound?” Ingrid corrected her.

“No, I mean the taste?” Tessa explained.

Salt mackerel with okra and sweet potato pudding.

Ingrid stared at her in confusion, then used her eyes to sweep across the table. Four glasses of water, with a large slice of lemon swimming at the top, were positioned in front of each female. A small white bowl holds packets of salt and paper in the center. Staring at them with menus in their hands, she reminds them, “There is no food here. We are still waiting to choose our meal.”

Josie and Lynx giggled, and then Lynx shared, “Everything is food for her,” pointing at Tessa who was sandwiched between her and Josie on her left and Ingrid on her right.

My homemade whole-wheat raisin bread. Roasted chicken legs. Image by Annelise Lords

“Do you even know what Crowdfunding is?” Ingrid asked.

“No,” Tessa answered. “But I still don’t like the taste.”

A heart packed with nuts and barbecue chicken.

Reading the long stretched-out confusion on Ingrid’s face, Lynx elaborates, “She can taste life.”

“Life is food?” Ingrid asked in confusion her eyes glaring at Tessa.

They nodded and pointed to Tessa who was sipping her lemon water.

Lynx teased, her eyes expanding, “Paint her a picture.”

“Yeah,” Josie adds. “Imitate Pissaco.”

Tessa gulps a sip of her lemon water and paints using blue first, “Whatever it is that you are trying to sell us, is a financial miracle. Not even Warren Buffet can create that miracle in two years. Heck, he can’t do it in five either!”

“You figure that out by tasting what I just offered?” Ingrid curiosity demands, on the edge of anger. “How?”

“You know we know nothing about Crowdfunding,” Tessa paints with specks of black.

“I know you are smart females,” she compliments.

“But you must think we are stupid to believe that you can double thirty grand legally in two years,” Tessa paints with grey.

“Every salesperson believes their customers or clients are gullible,” she said boldly.

Josie and Lynx burst out laughing, as Tessa stared at her in shock and then questioned using white paint, “Is that what Peter told you about us?”

“Actually, he bet that if you were blind, I wouldn’t be able to sell you sight. But, them two,” she said pointing to Lynx and Josie. “Are suckers.”

Tessa nodded in agreement, as Lynx and Josie stared at her enraged.

Then Tessa paints using soft light pink, “So it was a test of the emergency broadcast system?”

She nods.

“What if we had agreed?” Tessa paints, mixing black with grey.

“I came prepared to sell you something,” she said staring into Tessa’s eyes.

Silence eased in briefly and Ingrid asked, “How do you taste life?”

Tessa stared at her, but her thoughts were miles away. Pain shoves her back into now and she paints with a beautiful comfortable relaxing pink hue, “When I am faced with certain issues in life I mix common sense, instincts, intuition, knowledge, wisdom, kindness, experience, and understanding of life, and living to make my favorite dish.”

Ingrid stared at her in shock.

“All of my emotions and feelings are connected to my actions, choices, and decisions. So, I can feel the pain of my stupidity and the pleasure of my smartness,” Tessa paints her a picture.

“And smartness tastes better?” Ingrid asked smiling.

“You painted Picasso Les Trois Hollandaises, peinture à la colle sur carton?” Lynx asked.

Ingrid’s eyes expanded too quickly and she blinked several times and asked, “You speak French?”

“It means The Three Dutch Girls, glue painting on cardboard,” Josie informs.

Ingrid quickly eased back blinking.

Tessa finished the painting, “We are three Dutch girls. Our ancestors were slaves under Danish rule in the West Indies more than three hundred years ago.”

Silence reigns and Ingrid takes its power away, “I love your association with life as food. Can you teach me how to taste life?”

I can taste life. That awareness grants me the power to make better decisions that will impact my life in its long journey if I am alive. I am alive and over fifty, still sitting on my decisions. Like Tessa, all of my decisions are made from a place where wisdom roams. Coming from poverty I got the opportunity to taste a life better than the one that I know. I love it and continue to make decisions from my taste of the life I want for myself. And the taste I don’t want too.

Can You Taste Life?

If your heart could speak, what would it say?

When you taste the life you want, you fight to make it better, not worse.

Write a story or a poem explaining how you taste life and what decisions you make from it. Be honest, creative, and funny too.

You taste life from your choices, actions, and decisions. If you are right, you feel joy. If you are wrong, pain and agony are what you taste. Then you make a choice.

Thank you for reading this. I hope you enjoyed it.