I have always been attracted to fruit \u2013 as a girl with a sweet tooth, I resonate with their endearing size, flavour profiles, and delicate ties to femininity. During reflection on which one in particular I wanted to write about, I cycled through my favourites; mangoes, apples, grapes \u2026 they were all meaningful to me, but what came to the forefront of my mind and stayed there wasn\u2019t remarkable at all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t often have blueberries. It\u2019s only when the circumstances perfectly align that they end up in my fridge and subsequently in my mouth \u2013 if there\u2019s a sale I can\u2019t ignore, a recipe I\u2019m determined to follow, or a family member who made them appear in front of me. I specifically recall a recent memory where I was sitting at the kitchen table of my childhood home eating blueberries alone. I picked my way through the small blue fruits in the contrasting red bowl, rifling through to find the biggest, firmest, and most promising candidates. I remember seeing it as a gamble of flavours, a psychology experiment on associations between size and taste. If I felt particularly reckless, I would scoop up a handful and feel all the different flavours combine in my mouth. I was so inspired, in fact, that I took it upon myself to write my thoughts down in the form of a Notes app poem. Working a 9-5 internship made me feel uncreative and nostalgic of my more creative middle school times, so this is the product of such feelings:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
if i was blueberry<\/p>\n\n\n\n
i wonder if i\u2019d still be small<\/p>\n\n\n\n
i wonder if people would avoid me in the crowd, opting to pick my bigger counterpart<\/p>\n\n\n\n
i wonder if finally, at the end, they would take the risk and spear through my soft skin<\/p>\n\n\n\n
or if they would throw me away<\/p>\n\n\n\n
i wonder if when they break through my flesh with their teeth<\/p>\n\n\n\n
they would be pleasantly surprised by my sweetness<\/p>\n\n\n\n
or if they would cringe from the tartness, and live the rest of their life avoiding other small blueberries<\/p>\n\n\n\n
if i was a blueberry i wonder if you would still choose me first<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although this piece is unsophisticated and unnecessarily romantic, I learned that blueberries truly do evoke much from me. Blueberries afford me imperfection. Among a world of perfectly GMO\u2019d fruits and perfectly edited lives, blueberries connect me to nature in a way that Susannah\u2019s Apples <\/em>did for her. They provide me with variety and natural bursts of joy that still manage to reach my overloaded dopamine receptors. They are a constant in my life, regardless of if I realize it or not. They top my yogurt, colour my smoothies, and are a delightful contrast in desserts. They are not my favourite, and they are not always the tastiest. Even among the cartons labeled Jumbo XL Sweet Blueberries, at least a few are bound to disappoint. Nonetheless, their flaws are exactly what makes them blueberries, and without the ones left squished at the bottom of the carton and the risk that comes with each bite, there is no experience being evoked \u2013 it all becomes quite boring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The blueberry mediates my view on life and how life views me. In my tumultuous age within our current world, I find myself, more often than not, unconfident. Unsure about my place in my life, the workplace, and the world. In these times, it brings me comfort to consider the similarities between me and a little blue fruit. The blueberry also has a body, and moves through its life based on, and through, its body. Unfortunately, it also gets judged on its appearance, and predetermined stereotypes determine its fate. Despite all this, it thrives! And it does this without all the unique capabilities that we have as humans. The blueberry is its own medium and the final product. It does not have the privilege of embodiment, the dynamic living experience of being <\/em>a blueberry \u2013 it simply is. Wegenstein notes in her chapter on Body <\/em>that online personas, cosmetic surgery, fashion and architecture as mediums demonstrate that \u201ccurrent trends of thinking\u201d about the body aim to nullify the rise of disembodiment in modern culture. Through the way we edit and adjust our own body and what it produces, we are able to control our experiences and design our life. This is how we end up with human experiences, rather than blueberry experiences.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this sense, blueberries afford me gratitude \u2013 appreciation of my uniquely human features, the dexterity of my fingers to create art, the earlobes that I intentionally pierced to make space for dangly jewelry, the still-developing brain that I fill with knowledge and skills. Wegenstein writes that our bodies, now mediated through technology, fashion, and self-representation, are not fixed but dynamic sites of creation \u2013 tools through which we experience, express, and even redesign life. Yet, as Mandel and C\u00e9zanne suggest, there is beauty in remaining tethered to the soil, in recognizing that even the most mediated body is still material. In the same way that Susannah\u2019s apples ground her in a sensual awareness of being \u201cpart fruit, part earth,\u201d my blueberries remind me that embodiment is a continuous act of negotiation between nature, self, and medium. The blueberry, then, becomes my counterpoint to digital disembodiment: a reminder of imperfection, decay, and the sweetness or tartness that cannot be filtered or replicated. Now when I encounter one, I feel my own presence with the world \u2013 how I consume it, and how it, in turn, shapes me. In this quiet exchange between fruit and flesh, I find an embodied media experience: a small affirmation that I am still here, still part of the earth, still alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Turkle, Sherry. \u201cWHAT MAKES AN OBJECT EVOCATIVE? .\u201d pp. 307\u2013326.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wegenstein, Bernadette. \u201cBody.\u201d Critical Terms for Media Studies<\/em>, pp. 19\u201334.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have always been attracted to fruit \u2013 as a girl with a sweet tooth, I resonate with their endearing size, flavour profiles, and delicate ties to femininity. During reflection on which one in particular I wanted to write about, I cycled through my favourites; mangoes, apples, grapes \u2026 they were all meaningful to me, … Continue reading Blueberries, Body, and More<\/span>