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What a playground is to a child, fruit trees are to me. I prod the hanging lemons, whose rinds are thick and wrinkled. As I skirt around the dropped, rotting fruit, I stand up under the orange tree and find myself embalmed in a sweet smell. Wherever my life ends up, bury me under a citrus tree.
I grab my camera and photograph all the bushels of citrus hanging together, obsessed with remembering this moment right here. At the end of the garden, I stare at what I think is a yellow orange. But it can’t be. It’s too large and shaped differently. Too excited and like a bull in a China shop, I put my eager fingers around one of the fruits and yank hard. I pressed my nose into the navel of it and take a deep inhale. Floral. Sour. It must be a grapefruit or we’re breeding giant oranges. I trip as I run to show my mother whose standing with the house keys in her hand: “You are like your dad. He did the same thing,” she says.
I’ve been eating grapefruits every morning. I sit by the pool listening to the cloud of blackbirds as I slice through the thick flesh to reveal segments in a gradient of red and orange, the middle section where the flesh meets, a blush pink. I dig my thumbs under the fruit and the juice spills over my fingers as I peel segment from rind. If I had the time, I would use the the excess skin to make citrus candy. The smell is tart and I feel my mouth salivate. The first bite is a subdued sourness and I’m surprised. I take bite after bite, the juices dribbling as the tanginess begins to make my lips pucker and jaw clench. I stare at the lapping pool water, the sun making a break in the clouds, the neighbours dog lets out a howl but the morning is still. This is a small pleasure. Something simple to start the day before the world wakes. Every morning, for the last few days, has started like this — a small burst of something familiar and quiet.