Red Beets/Blue Beets

When I was a child, my father & I used to go round and round about beets. I hated the things. He tried everything to get me to eat them. Anger, punishment, threats, jokes, and lies. He tried to tell me that I hated BLUE beets. The ones on my plate were RED, and he was pretty sure those were the beets I liked. I was really sure I hated them all. There are a few foods that I really won’t touch. My top three have been (1) liver - I don’t do organs, (2) chicken legs - all those blue veins and things that look slimy because they are, and (3) beets - red ones, and I suspect my father lied about the blue ones, because I’ve never seen one.

Throughout my life, I have held firm on my convictions to hate these foods. I have my reasons. Take beets, for example. You CANNOT control a beet. It’s a simple battle of wills between me and that beet. It gets on your plate and tries to take over everything there. It stains the mashed potatoes and cauliflower. Now, THOSE are nice, clean, white things that stay in their place until you eat them. But beets seem to need so much attention. A beet wants to stand out like it’s special. The brazen thing wants to run the whole show. Now, a beet is kind of floppy, too. Almost as if it has no strength or sense of self at all. It just seems spineless lying there flat, its juice running all over the place. One could almost feel sorry for the thing. Weird, you say? Well, it gets weirder. That beet cannot decide if it’s sweet or bitter. It almost seems the poor thing doesn’t know who or what it wants to be, and it cannot make a decision. I want it to get off the fence and decide to be sweet or bitter, but don’t try to be both at the same time and sit on MY plate. The last thing I hate about it is its color. That dull red. A beet is not a bright food that has fun being itself. I think the thing has a real self-image problem. It’s as if the dull color is trying to hide, but that juice begs for attention. So there you have it. It bleeds, it needs attention, it’s floppy, it’s dull, and it’s wishy-washy. All this looks vaguely familiar in some other way I can’t put my finger on...

Anyhow, I’ve been really working on my "self-growth" for quite awhile now. ( If this feels like a departure from the that miserable beet, just hang in there for a minute. This story seems to be spreading like beet juice...) I’ve been trying to learn to be nicer to myself, so I can be safer for other people in my life. This continues to be an interesting journey. It’s tough because I’ve been beeting (did I misspell that?) up on myself for so long. I’ve noticed a real need for attention, and a desire for people to like me. I’ve had some interesting self-image problems and I think my picture has been beside the definition of "wishy-washy." Decision-making has always been a difficult task for me. It seems I’m a lot like that beet I’ve always hated! A beet metaphor??? Well, along the way on this journey to self-discovery, something has actually happened!

The other night, my husband & I went out to the beach for dinner. They brought me this lovely salad. It had lettuce, peppers, onions, olives, carrots and - you guessed it - BEETS! But, I really didn’t notice those things on my plate. I just cut it up and started eating and was really enjoying that salad. The thought of hating beets never entered my mind. I had taken two bites with beets before I noticed Don looking at me like I was an alien. I’ve seen that look many times before, but I asked him what was up. "Why are you looking me at me like that?", I inquired as the beets on plate ran their juice all around and I didn’t notice. "Well, it’s just interesting, that’s all," he answered. Now I think HE’S the alien. "What’s so interesting about my eating salad?" I replied, feeling vaguely irritated at this interruption of my total love for this crazy salad. He said, "You’re eating beets. Did you know that?" I looked down and sure enough, there they were. Beet pieces - all over the place. The salad tasted great. It was a new flavor altogether. Now to the deep stuff...It was just this acceptance and enjoyment of something I’d always rejected, judged and thought I hated. I hadn’t tasted one for YEARS. I just believed I hated them, so I created a pattern around that belief. I had let a little girl (me), decide for an adult (me) what was supposedly real. Another metaphor, another lesson.

But, don’t hold your breath waiting for the liver metaphor. That durned liver has a flaky, chalky texture. It tastes too strong. It’s pushy. If it’s so great, why does it have to hide like a coward under a bunch of onions? I don’t like that part about liver where the taste is strong, but it hides like a chicken. And those chicken legs! Now there’s a really disgusting food. They hide, too. Can’t just be themselves. They go by "drum sticks", so nobody will know. Can’t these foods just be who they are and be honest about it? And yet, I haven’t tasted either one in years. I wonder if all those patterns and judgments are keeping me from finding two great new food to enjoy...NOT. I have my inflexibility to fall back on. It seems my old patterns die slow, hard deaths. In the meantime, I guess I’ll add a jar of RED beets to my grocery list this week. I’m still pretty sure I hate the blue ones. Bon Appetite!!