Also published on our LAC blog, The Pond
Rediscovering Durian - Julia Arenas
It was a hectic, hot visit to Bukidnon with my uncle during Holy Week. I was a bit weary on Tuesday when we arrived. I’d been cramming a script and rushing an edit the night before. Oops, a confession?
The heat that almost baked me was trapped between a metal roof and the concrete floor of a basketball gym. Around a thousand highschool graduates sweating in togas were herded into rows. If I had graduations my way that day, the guys would be in board shorts, the girls in swimsuits, and everyone would still have their hats. I imagined it that way instead. I’d begun shooting their guest speaker, then I suddenly blinked and realized I’d been shooting the podium with my eyes closed for around three minutes. The sun fiercely beat down on that roof. I began to have doubts that I’d get to enjoy any remaining part of that day. That was until my uncle had a photo op promoting a local fruit that was his favorite.
He presented the packaged and peeled durian fruit to me quite candidly and asked for an extra plastic spoon. I pursed my lips thinking. I had tasted durian years before and didn’t enjoy it, maybe because it was a different kind and wasn’t fresh. I was urged to try it again. I held onto the words my uncle said to convince my aunt who’d become a durian devotee, “It’s like custard.” I took a spoonful and paused. It was smelly, creamy, but yummy. I took another, he gladly left me the rest. The next morning, a number of resort guests shot irritated glances my way when I had it again for breakfast. I didn’t care. They didn’t know what they were missing, or smelling maybe. My uncle offered words of comfort “You will learn that it is a lonely man’s fruit.”
I sent an SMS message to two friends: “Smelly, creamy, yummy durian.” One replied “Eeewww.Yuck” and the other replied saying she was envious.
I remembered a line from a poem I wrote, which wasn’t about durian, but it did describe my new moment with the uncanny fruit quite well: “It would shut eyelids and widen the creases of our smiles.” And that it did.
