I sometimes run high on potassium. My doctor says high potassium is damaging to the heart. It fluctuates but now that I know the potential effect, I watch it. I limit the number of bananas I eat and I stay hydrated. It’s fluky. I retest and it’s normal again. But now I limit myself to one banana a week. It is really hard to keep a bunch of bananas good for a month. I buy them kind of green and eat one that’s kind of green, greener than I would like –who wants a mouth full of banana starch? Then I eat one that’s ripe the following week, maybe, truth be told, too ripe, bright yellow with brown stripes, polka dotted with pox marks. Enter the relationship. Having someone to share the bananas establishes a new equilibrium. More bananas are consumed, more are purchased. They are consumed at their peak. Consumption drives circulation.
Naturally, it’s not just bananas we’re talking about. It’s circulation of air, of breath, of ideas, of emotions. Who better than the person you’re in relationship with to show you where you need to grow? How better to see those things that you don’t communicate but that are supposed to be known by your partner? Our blind spots. Who can help us see our pock marks from old wounds that are benign craters now, but need radical acceptance, transformation so that we can recognize our own beauty?
I would like to say you can do it, you can be transformed in isolation. But I can’t, you can’t. I have a set of relationships where I find I show up when I can help, but I am inarticulate about what help I need. I don’t have the vocabulary with which to ask. I know my people support me even when they are disappointed or even angry with me. I paint myself into this box. Good news! I paint myself into this box! I can paint a door or a window and get out by asking for help and receiving it. Truly receiving it. Like lapping it up like a cat drinks milk. I see myself wrapped in a blanket of support, a blanket of caring friends massaging my shoulders until I’m free from tension. I see us sitting around a table sipping sangria and eating fruit salad featuring, you guessed it, sliced bananas.