I learned today that rhubarb is grown in the dark. A method called forcing. It’s kept from the sun, then fed in brief bursts of candlelight. The plant, searching for an absent sun, stretches so fast you can hear it. When done right, the result is sweeter. More fragile.
Not everything needs to be an allegory. Still, I can’t help but think about certain things that shaped my formative years. I might be able to recall it with great precision had someone else been there, had I told the story out loud by now. But it’s just my mind and the brightness of the walls that were more like a hospital than a bedroom. And my hands, small and reaching, for the one thing a child wants.
Heather O’Neill, one of my mother’s favorite authors, wrote that if you want a child to love you, you should hide in a closet for three or four hours. They’ll fall to their knees. Pray you back into being. That child will make you God. “Lonely children probably wrote the Bible.”
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