As I get ready to meet the cocoa tree in real life, I have been gathering imagery from my upbringing. The pomegranate that my grandmother had in her front yard and the way the fruit resembles a brain and how parts of hers are going bad and how parts of my brain don’t quite compute correctly. The red of the pomegranate and the red of Grandma’s dress that was made out of stolen Nazi flags. The red of my grandmother’s hair and how it was covered with a hat in her youth. The crisp ten-dollar bills and Milka bars Aunt Martha would bring from Germany on visits and how cocoa is like money growing on a tree. The chocolate and oranges American soldiers gave my grandmother as a child when they marched through her town in World War II. The orange trees of my Southern Californian youth.
Photo of children, including Katie Crocker by Hildegard Crocker.