Dots

Her runner-up speech hit differently. Most podium finishes end with the usual boilerplate remarks, punctuated by polite thank-you notes. But hers was filled to the brim with gratitude—so much so, it nearly overflowed. She thanked everyone: the fans, her team, the organizers, the groundskeepers, possibly even the pigeons perched on the court.

What it wasn’t filled with was any mention of her. No recognition of the fact that she bulldozed her way through one of the most elite, unforgiving knockout tournaments in the world. No nod to her own effort, strategy, talent, or skill. You’d think she’d been plucked off the street in a raffle and dropped straight into the final of the most prestigious event in the sport.

It was the kind of speech you’d expect from someone who accidentally wandered onto Centre Court and got mistaken for the finalist—the gratitude of someone who had something handed to them, not someone who earned it with blisters, adrenaline, and raw nerve.

And it makes you wonder: what’s going on in this part of the hemisphere that we’ve started distancing ourselves from our own accomplishments, to the point of erasure?

Because tomatoes don’t do this, tomatoes are not this humble. They will tell you exactly how they want to be treated. They will tell you—no, insist—on how they want to be cooked. A Provençal tomato doesn’t just lie quietly in your fridge, hoping to be noticed. It demands olive oil. Basil. Sunlight. It expects to be charred on an open flame or layered delicately in a galette. Lean in, and it will whisper: “You don’t get to decide how you eat me. I do.”

He, on the other hand, puts tomatoes to shame. He’s promised to learn how to fly the plane on the job. He nearly squeezed out a victory with a slick, soothing campaign: affordable housing, free childcare, free buses. But if he’d promised subsidized matcha lattes and free therapy, it would’ve been a landslide.

Maybe we’ve all just gotten a little weird about owning our wins. It’s all connected, though.