Pie Day

In sixth grade, my friend Beth and I demolished a large cherry pie while sitting, armed with a single fork, on her bedroom floor. Some time later, we were found out by her minister grandfather, who sternly instructed us we must eat to live, not live to eat.   

Even then I vaguely understood he wasn’t talking about pie but appetite, and how anything beyond modest necessity was gross, unseemly. I sensed that it mattered that we were girls.  

Beth and I were shamed into silence, but fifty-five years later, I’m angry we weren’t raised to challenge the notion that just enough was our birthright, and anything beyond that was a moral failing.  

Over a lifetime I’ve forgotten and relearned the cycle of basic instinct, and have only now managed to secure the joy in everything, from craving to giving in.

Today, though, I’m thinking I would love to have back that moment when Beth and I thought we’d gotten away with it, and even more, the moment before that, when we didn’t know there was anything to hide.