🧃The Juice🧃

Spicy Plant Protein.

LATE DUE TO THE NATURE OF IT ALL.

Monday.
Monday is for getting down to business...

The day called for a girl-means-business walk. On this Monday, the strut was to the indoor maze arena of fabrics and kaftans. I wasn’t looking for fabrics but instead, my lost phone.

The garage-style doors had yet to fully open upon arrival. As such, I lingered on the sidewalk wondering which door was the correct entrance in an attempt to retrace my steps. When one of the doors was finally unlocked and lifted, a dealer was just beginning to take out his socks and mannequins to start styling his table. I walked in, knowing the place wasn’t fully ready for patrons, but I was on a mission.

As I entered, I found that most of the textile kiosks were closed, but I decided to keep walking.

As I took a right, then a left, I noticed a man was sweeping unwanted deadstock fabric into a pile. One of the lush, cabernet-coloured velvet pieces in the swept tangle caught my eye.

I asked if I could have what he seemed to be discarding. “This one yes; not this one,” he responded in French, as if renegotiating with himself of the value of the scraps due to my interest.

Another chiffon-like fabric in a muted mulled wine colour poked through the tangle. As I picked it up, its translucent glimmer gave off specks of tangerine. “Absolutely,” I thought.

The pieces were a soothing surprise given I was looking for my lost phone and serendipitously, these were the right fabrics to match a cut of magenta I already had at my dwelling. A patchwork project began to swirl in my brain.

Given that most of the kiosks had yet to open, I exited the building to find a proper place to wait.

While I waited outside a small cafe that had a set of outdoor tables and chairs, I perused through old photos from a second phone that had not seen the light of a charge in over a year. The phone currently has no connection, but it is a mini storage of old memories, nonetheless.

As I scrolled through the photos, gratitude washed over me. Rarely does a Virgo acknowledge their own growth, let alone feel proud. But I was, in that moment, stuck in some limbo called a cafe chair with scrap fabric hoping to find a lost, working phone. An in between of projects that spoke beyond the material, I found that although my phone was lost, and I was in a place where I still didn’t speak the dominant language, I was more proud of myself than ever.

In true Virgo spirit, the reflection ended and it was time to retrace my steps within the fabric maze once more.

Like a gift from the Universe, or my guardian angels, the dealer of ribbons and beads I had visited days prior did indeed have my working phone.

Despite his naysay, I returned to bring the phone saving kiosk attendant a hot tea in a show of thank you.

Afterwards, it was time to finish the business. This time, to the post office for an ask of two stamps that may or may not be the official means of entering the Matrix.