shadows fall unstraight,
stroking sunlit skin like wisps
of mem’ry,
chiaroscuro silhouettes
reminiscent of a lover’s touch
Vanilla.
It is a much-maligned flavor, a word used to indicate blandness or banality, as though it is a pleasure-less humdrum insult to one’s oh-so-refined tastes regardless of what contextual table is being set. It is all too often a “lifestyle” designation. A unit of language not so much spoken as spat, a one-up measure used to other-ize, to the point where those on the receiving end of its pursed-lip condescension feel the need to apologize for their flavor, or – worse – begin to believe that nobody will ever find their particular vanilla-y taste appealing.
“I’m pretty vanilla” is often accompanied by an apologetic shrug; “I’m sorry I’m so vanilla” is said with a cringing self-effacing tone meant to pre-emptively deflect ridicule. I have heard a countless number of these remorseful defenses in recent years, and it’s an enlightening commentary on the elitism too often found in members of certain self-described non-vanilla communities that this continues to happen.
If you are one of the people for whom such regretful rejoinders have become second nature, this message is for you: Vanilla is a lot of things (I’ll get to some of them in a moment), but it is nothing – NOTHING – to apologize for.
