Circumcising the Grape

When I was 16, I was madly in love with a graffiti-artist slash rapper from Queens. With Hip-Hop making its way to the mainstream, I snubbed my Luke Skywalker-Me-So-Horney roots for Tribe Called Quest’s “Midnight Marauders” as I was obsessed with all things New York. My mother and I recently discussed that whimsical season over a couple glasses of Manischewitz Grape Concord wine, the season when her daughter added hundreds of gray hairs to her precious, Pentecostal head. Queens and I broke up during my spring break visit from Howard University. It was a dramatic ending complete with a bonfire of all the artistic pieces he had given me. “He circumcised me from his life,” I cried to my mother, weeping and wailing, Jamaican-style, my singed, teenage heart leaning on the biblical words I wanted so much to abandon. I remember my mother, who was dually mortified and impressed, sitting with me as I waded through the miry clay of my first heartbreak. She pulled out her holy oil (Pompeian olive oil) from her nightstand drawer, poured a little on her fingers and made the sign of the cross on my forehead. I had de-Pentecostalized myself after I left home, but I still loved when my mother prayed for me. With my forehead cupped in her slick hand, she prayed that the pain would subside and that I would I finish college. Both prayers were answered (eventually lol).

Tigers & Callaloo



Yoko Sugiura  


Nurse: Are you an organ donor?

Me: Um, well, I’m using my organs right now.

Nurse (Laughs): I mean in the event that something happens…

Me: Sure. But try not to kill me. It would be really inconvenient if I died right now.

I had major surgery this year. It was the scariest experience of my life. The surgical procedure was super-risky and major blood loss was highly probable. So was death. The surgeon, a fellow Jamaican-American, advised me to eat obscene amounts of callaloo as it was critical that my blood was iron-rich for the procedure. Callaloo is like a spinach-meets-collard greens vegetable. It’s a classic Jamaican dish that is usually served with boiled yellow and white yams, dasheen, fried dumplings, and ackee and salt fish. My father makes exquisite callaloo and when he heard what the doctor said, he planted callaloo gardens all around his house. In the weeks that preceded the surgery, he pulled, stripped and chopped his fears into edible pieces, seasoning the callaloo with yellow onions, scallion, salt and pepper. He served the callaloo with Jasmine rice that was perfumed with dried shrimp. He offered this dish to his only daughter with all his heart. The day before my procedure was super-intense. What if the doctor accidentally leaves a blunt inside of me? (My brother, a physician, says that many doctors smoke a little ganja). What if I lose my sense of smell and can’t recall the dreamy aromas in that 1997 Bertani Amarone? What if I lose the ability to weave words? I lied on my parents’ couch, the sun frozen between my legs as I chatted with God. I asked him to choose the nurses, the anesthesiologist, even the table I would lay on as they carved into me. I asked him to choose the surgical utensils and to give the surgeons exactness and wisdom with every incision.  That morning daddy and I prayed together. “You’re going to emerge from this like a tiger,” he said as he pulled callaloo from the earth.

Calaloo is very cheap and available at most West Indian or Caribbean supermarkets. If you don’t have these markets in your community or city, consult your nearest Jamaican who may actually be growing some.