Orange You Glad...

It's nearly 2am, late for a college kid to be up working... on winter break. The fragrant box of Holiday Satsumas sitting next to me on the counter exercise a passionate romance with my nose. I shamelessly eat one. When selecting my second post-holiday Satsuma I realize how soft the peel is. and while I peel it, realize how ripe the fruit must be. last call by produce time. Time for eatin. a memory from a few days earlier hops to the front of my stream of conscious: The mandarin orange's cousin was sitting in my car. A friend picked it up to move and laughed. "Rachel," she said. "Do you know how soft this Satsuma is?" I did. "How long has it been sitting here? Are you going to throw it out?"

And now, enjoying the fragrance, anticipation, and pure suppleness of this ready little orange, I think about who else might find a Satsuma in a similar condition. Who else might revel in the fruit's ripened glory? While this box of little guys are all from the United States, I imagine a farmer or little boy in China, Turkey, or South America, picking one up off the ground. Suddenly, the fruit in my talons was the connection between me and a world i have only imagined. While I select fruit from a box sitting next to me, someone else might pull it off a tree or pick it up off the ground. While I work on my Mac making an invitation for my parents' 25th anniversary party, and someday hope to be paid for this skillset, someone else is walking down a dirt road, well set in their lifelong profession. It's 2 o'clock in the morning and I have the leisure, safety, and privilege to sit in a house and "work" on something completely intangible.

It's moments like these that connect me to the greater world. Thinking about the things we all share, and the circumstances that separate us. This time, though, I think our lives aren't so far apart, tiered away from each other. Just different. Because anyone with good sense can enjoy a really ripe Satsuma.



(image courtesy of Pappaliscious > http://flickr.com/photos/pappalicious/1463641070/)