When I was a teenager, my grandmother, who lived with my parents and I, tried a fork of some food I can’t remember. She remarked, “This doesn’t taste right.” It was a common food, and I thought it was a funny remark. She was of the age that my parents and I saw her as eccentric. I smirked at her words. “My God, haven’t you ever eaten something that just doesn’t taste right?” she responded, disgusted with me. What I found funny was her lack of specificity. The food was spoiled or too spicy or had a refrigerator flavor; it just didn’t taste right.
Now, the now of the last few years, or decades, I am having the same non-specific reaction to the my place in society. It just doesn’t feel right. I can point to differences between now and the last years of the 1980’s when I could call a radio station and talk to with the DJ or contact Amazon and talk with someone about a double order. I could drive out to the local university between fields of grass and weeds rather along strips of housing or business developments. But, the feeling itself is abstract like claustrophobia or dread.
