i love how bright oranges are. and that they’re round (a good shape) and that sumo oranges have that fun wrinkled texture. i love that they’re a good source of fiber and vitamin C and hydration on a hot day. i love that on hot days, my aunt in India always brought me orange juice WITH pulp because she knew that that's how i liked it.
i love that you don’t really have to wash oranges so you can pick them up from a store or a roadside stall in the morning and take them straight with you on a hike. and i love that you have to work a little bit for the sweetness underneath the peel so that when you offer to share a slice or two with your friends on said hike, they’re universally likely to accept. let me repeat, i love that you can share oranges with your friends.
i love that my current phone lock screen is a zoomed in detail of a painting of oranges by Vincent van Gogh. i love that i served an orange themed cocktail at my last birthday party. in Baudrillardian fashion, i love those Terry's Chocolate Oranges that break apart and remind me of the holiday season, and i love Equator Coffee Roaster’s Habibi Latte which warms me up from the inside and is made with orange blossom, cardamom, and cloves.
i love that my friends now associate me with oranges and have gotten me gifts ranging from orange paintings to orange refrigerator magnets to the book Oranges by John McPhee, from which my favorite take is that the “golden apples” Hercules had to retrieve as part of his twelve labors were, in fact, oranges.
i mentioned this in a love letter to reinhardt redwood regional park, but an orange is one of the Main Characters of my favorite poem.
in 2024, i collected photos from every time that i shared an orange with a friend; here’s a few of those photos:
excited to share another orange with y’all soon :)