How to tell you're at Whole Foods

The entire store smells like patchouli and whatever hearty vegan stew-of-the-day you can sample near the salad bar.

They serve vegan stew.

All the packaging on everything is 100% biodegradable.

There is a wine bar and it has a sommelier. There is a sushi bar and it's hand rolled.

At least 1/3 of the female shoppers at any given time don't shave their armpits and haven't owned a bra since the Reagan administration. They also smell like patchouli.

Instead of saying, "Have a good day" the clerk says, "Have a blessed day."

You can buy herbal beverages that promote "macrobiotic wellness" but they look and taste like someone went to the countryside in China and emptied a latrine into recyclable glass bottles.

Children named Story Zephyr and Ever Marigold try to squirrel organic fruit chews under their free-trade cotton t-shirts before their mothers notice. They all have beautiful heads of long blonde hair that would make Barry Gibb jealous.

Everything has a dairy-free, soy-free, sugar-free, MSG-free, gluten-free, nut-free alternative.

You can buy the standard ingredients for guacamole and nothing else and your bill will be $28. Plus tax.

There are "locally grown" signs everywhere in the produce department written in really big, condescending print.

If the phrase "plastic bag" is uttered the offending party will be escorted out and the entire store will not be able to resume shopping until someone burns sage and offers a healing affirmation to the Universe.

The guy behind the meat counter hands you a packet of information about the filet mignon he just wrapped for you. It comes complete with the animal's name, birthday, genealogy, photos of its childhood home, and the contact information of its family so you may pay your respects and bring them a jell-o mold as they mourn their loss.   

Knotty pine

She's quiet today. In an old green chair nestled in the corner, it used to belong to her grandmother. The window sheers flirt with the arm, drag their edges over the worn upholstery as the world hums outside. Chin on knees, running fingers around the rim of a tea cup long ago emptied. The words are far and deep and muddy in her head. Like a stubborn tree root having lodged itself in an inconvenient chuck of earth, in the center of a path she walks often. Over time it becomes easier to step out of the way - automatic really, feet leading around it before the mind detects a detour.

The baby sighs in his crib across the room; sleep pulls him back. She was young to have a baby and never disagreed when anyone pointed that out.

She has visions of cutting down that tree and its primitive grip on the earth below. Of hacking into the side, the wood splintering and howling with each blunt blow from her axe. Of tearing the ancient roots out from their knotty burrows deep below the ground's surface with her bare hands. But erasing that which has stood for hundreds of years longer than her short 20 is not without consequence. Even so, she can't stop imagining what it might be like to run free through that forest, unafraid of these wild roots that threaten her stride and make her feel small.

The baby wakes. Dreams reach for the window and scatter into a thousand indistinguishable pieces as they fly away into the blue of the sky.

Grandma Rita

When I was a sophomore in college my creative writing professor forced me to submit a prose piece I had written to my university's literary review magazine by threatening to fail me. She was only kidding, but kind of she wasn't. The piece I submitted was an assignment we were given: write about a childhood memory in 400 words or less. The first and most important childhood memory that came to mind was making Christmas cookies with my brother and my grandparents. We've done it every year for as long as I can remember. Every time I think of these memories I can smell the sweet dough softly rising in the oven; taste the frosting whipped and dripping from butter knives and smeared across chair backs; feel the sprinkles scattered across the holiday tablecloth and stuck on wool socks. I can see my grandparents, so patient, diligently laying delicate little pastries in front of me and my brother while oohing and aahing with upturned smirks at our overly decorated sugary creations.

Everything about these memories is warm. And perfect. And wondrous.  

Opening the letter declaring me the prose winner was a big moment. Not because I had won and my piece was going to be published, but because these memories would be given a tangible place in the world - bound in ink forever. For that, I'll always be thankful my professor almost failed me.

Grandma Rita  

I watched her hands.  Kneading and tensing at the dough, using her body weight to force the air bubbles out of the middle. It resisted and howled out after each blunt slap from her left palm, but she continued turning it over and again, pressing and turning, pressing and turning. Her almond skin gathered loosely on top of her palms and stretched tight when she flexed and contorted the dough. Thin bands of the floury concoction collected under her oval nails, highlighting the drastic arc she always filed them into. I wondered what her hands looked like before so much life had lived on them. Before she was a wife, before five boys. Before buckets of bleach and Fels Naptha, before Sunday night dinners.  Before all of it.

"There, now we let it rest," she would say, picking the tired dough up and slapping it one last time into a speckled ceramic bowl.

Waiting was my favorite part. Grandma with her back to the window, one foot crossed in front of the other and her elbow propped on the counter top. I would sit across from her, my hands under my chin. We talked about nothing in particular; what day everyone was coming for Christmas, the ornament that had gone missing last year she had found, or a piece of gossip she had heard from the neighbors. I watched her absentmindedly pick out chunks of stuck dough from under her nails. She would go into the bathroom that smelled like lemons and Neutrogena shampoo to scrape out any that was too stubborn with a tweezers.

I watched my own hands now. Frosting mini Santa and Christmas tree cutouts along side my Grandma's. Unsteady and dripping red and green frosting I fumbled to turn the delicate pastries; tried to keep the frosting as even on the edges as she did. I saw them move with hers, the same commanding fingers and distinguished wrists, the same gently fleshy palms. I saw my Grandma's hands. Before she was a wife, before five boys.  Before buckets of bleach and Fels Naptha, before Sunday night dinners. Before all of it.