musing on a blood orange, something no writer has done before
musing on a blood orange, something no writer has done before
prose about citrus. groundbreaking
I had never known what the inside of a blood orange looked like, until my friend Isabella cracked one open on my porch one or two Sundays ago. I was shocked at the variety of colors found within the fruit: purple and red, orange of course. It tasted tangy, but also bitter, somehow the best of what an orange could deliver, but stopped before it went too far. Oranges, imo, usually go way too far.
The colors inside this blood orange went crazy. All my favorite hues were captured. I appreciated the blood orange for its beauty as well as its benefits to my health. I don’t eat enough fruits. I fall sick often, I always have, since I was a kid. Before a family trip or a school play. Now, just whenever I really specifically don’t want to be sick, I get sick.
I’m a little sick right now, at a time I don’t want to be sick, because I was finally starting to get my shit together. I’ve been a broken record about the attempt. My shit was not uniquely untogether by any means, but recently I’ve felt that I’ve been Doing Things Right. Reaching the elusive rhythm between maintaining my health and wellness, financial stability, social life, and orientation towards joy. All while setting aside the proper space for remorse, getting hit by anxiety and yearning; giving up a round, or two, or three, and then getting back up again. I’ve eaten salads and fruits, gone to the gym, and danced at concerts. When I started drafting this letter, I exclusively spoke about how great I was feeling and what I was up to. Then I sat on the couch and all the good feelings faded away. I doomscrolled until bedtime. Last night, on my way to bake muffins with some friends, my car got towed and I panicked.
There’s a blood orange in my system right now. I ate one during a work call, after presenting an assignment that caused me a lot of stress this week. It’s sitting in my stomach, along with the anxiety of more work incoming. The last blood orange I consumed came a few days ago, when I took a walk outside after a two hour long meeting. The weather is finally nice in LA, and I’ve gotten to spend parts of my day checking out the art galleries on my street, sitting at the park with my friends, ripping off pieces of the orange and putting them in my mouth. Throwing the entrails to the dirt, comforted by the knowledge that they will be soaked up by the natural process, whether in the ground of West Hollywood or by my body itself. These experiences are crucial to me, they stave off the thinkable horrors.
I keep thinking about this one line from the last episode of the Netflix show, BEEF. I hate to be another vaguely Asian American person doing free promotion for it, because I don’t wish to virtue signal as either a liberal Asian diaspora dick, nor a Men’s Rights slash David Choe Advocate. However, I keep thinking about this one line from the last episode of the Netflix show, BEEF.
No spoilers, but the show basically ends with a full episode of existentialist musing. Much of the episode features an overwhelming mass of dialogue intended to feel weighty and profound. However, so much is said at a single pitch that what ended up breaking to the surface and capturing my attention was a moment that was, comparatively, fairly banal.
Danny, played by Steven Yeun, mentions how kids who grew up in the 80’s got fucked by second hand smoke, fast food, and candy. No one knew how bad it all was, at the time. I’ve been kind of shocked to think that someone could speak that way about a generation besides my own. My fellow Zoomers and I sometimes appear to be caught in a never-ending malaise, usually attributed to the constant anticipation of mass catastrophic events regarding the economy or the climate or politics or public health or nuclear war or technology or bigotry and stuff like that, derailing any future we can imagine for ourselves. When I sink into the woe of considering my place amongst these topics and trajectories, I’m never at my best.
When my car got towed last night, and I thought about that experience placed up against my bank account and my workload and my physical health, I felt bad. I felt like Danny, a man being carried forward by grief and rage, even if just for one evening. It made me grateful to consider that amongst those experiences, I also had a friend who handed me a blood orange two Sundays ago. Now I have a pack of them on my kitchen table, instead of something like a cigarette in my mouth. When I take one of these oranges and peel the skin away, there is a wild mix of hues inside. Deep purples, bright oranges, and burning reds. At once so tangy, and bitter, and sweet. They live an unpredictable life, one that I feel like I’ve shared: being grown in the sunshine, jostled in trucks, and ripped apart by other living beings. It comforts me to know that the end of both our stories is certain, and identical. Oh, to settle it all in the dirt.