writing for things: juicy fruit

At Being Uncomfortable

I don’t use umbrellas or raincoats or whatever. I keep my one key in my wallet. On a good day, I have a pack of juicy fruit to stuff into my pocket. Otherwise, I leave the house with my phone, my wallet, and a pen. A good day because gum absconds my mouth of productive purpose, contributive energy otherwise shunted to speech. I spend much of my life performing minute gestures towards escape, what some call fidgeting. Fidgeting is a word that is powerless. Its sound and connotation say nothing to the dissociative, nervous, scared, avoidant nature of the movements entailed, towards one’s compulsive fixation on change. “I noticed that my opponent is always on the go / and won't go slow, so's not to focus, and I notice / he'll hitch a ride with any guide, as long as / they go fast from whence he came / but he's no good at being uncomfortable, so / he can't stop staying exactly the same.” Fiona Apple. I see myself, but doesn’t that mean I don’t? 

After a brief search, however, I have come to know that the word is derived from an Old Norse word “fyken,” to move about restlessly. This word, it appears, has an interesting connotation, one that perhaps speaks to the “good day” quality of my juicy fruit. “Fyken” comes from the word “fikjask,” meaning to desire eagerly, suggesting that to fidget and to fuck are linguistically connected. A good day indeed, says my salivary gland, watering at the thought of bursting joy, two pieces of yellow powdery white Juicy Fruit, two to blow better bubbles, to pop away another wandered thought back into the present. I must apologize—there was and remains to be no intended tone of vulgar euphemism. Continuing on. 

I once called these little fidgets—each chew of gum, each removal and replacement of the cap of the pen in my pocket, each twirl of my hair—stammers of the suckle. They seem very much infantile, unaware, casually vulnerable and delicate without intention or protection, like a baby wanting the nipple without the words to ask. They’re societally accepted moments of self-doubt, where we pause in the thoughts of actions, the polarized threshold. Lou Reed says “Between thought and expression / lies a lifetime.” That’s a harsh way to look at it. I must say, I never find myself doubting whether I should eat the last piece of Juicy Fruit. It is one of those moments in a day that I can come to call good when I allow myself to act without the self-censorship of a scarcity mindset. 

I am told that the societally accepted view of Juicy Fruit is negative. I don’t understand. It is relentlessly nostalgic, like the song your parents played for you hundreds of times every single night to put you to sleep. Well, I guess not… Baby Beluga doesn’t seem to have that effect on me anymore. But Juicy Fruit explodes with simple satisfaction for the hundredth time, thousandth time, just as the first. 

In the mornings, I check the flimsy yellow paper containers for straggler pieces; I throw away empty cardboard boxes; I pocket full boxes; By the time I return home, my pockets, filled with unused second-piece-wrappers and smelling most wonderful, are depleted of gum. Of course, in the rushed dethresholding that oft occurs returning from long day, I have no interest in throwing away those empty boxes, in engaging with the morning me that has that motivation, that courage to act. I simply shove the empty box onto my dresser, next to my phone, my wallet, and my Pilot Fineliner pen. I pull my pants off, and I get in bed. A new threshold awaits.