Last week, when I ordered fruit as a side at a restaurant, I especially enjoyed the oranges. I love oranges, but I don’t eat them very often. I think this is because eating oranges is not a simple process, and it certainly is not conducive to multitasking. But last week, I was still on break from work and time felt plentiful. So when I was at the grocery store with Marilyn, I told her that I would buy oranges so I could eat one every morning.
Of course, I didn’t eat an orange on Tuesday, my first day back. It was enough just to be awake and dressed and at a meeting by 9 a.m. after having stayed up really late each night over break.
On Wednesday morning, though, I remembered the oranges.
As I was peeling an orange, I noticed it demanded my attention. I peel oranges by making vertical cuts down the rind and using my fingers to remove the peel. In the process, my hands get sticky. As I separate the segments, sometimes the pulp remains on my fingers. When I am peeling an orange, I cannot also be working on the computer or writing in my journal. This is not a fruit to toss in my lunch bag, not like the apple I usually take to work. This fruit requires patience. I have to peel it, section it, and only then can I eat it.
Ideally, I would eat it standing in front of the kitchen window, looking at the new blue spruce tree planted in our backyard last fall and watching the birds at the feeder.
But on Wednesday, I was in the midst of revising syllabi. I needed to work. So I cut the orange into bite-size pieces, put them in a bowl, and ate them with a fork. So I multitasked after all.
Still, for a few minutes there, I had stopped working and paid attention to this beautiful, fragrant fruit.
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That evening, as we walked in our neighborhood, I told Marilyn my thoughts about oranges and the attention they demand. She nodded. “Every eighth grader should be required to peel an orange once a week. That will help them to learn to focus on one task for a few minutes.” As I imagined rows of eighth graders intent on the fruit, their fingers sticky with juice, I smiled at this woman I love.
Lovely, loving, thoughtful post.
ReplyDeleteSusan Hopkins
SO beautiful!! A real reminder to slow down and not rush through the world. My son is in the 8th grade - I might suggest this to the head of his middle school! Lovely post!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Susan and Rory. And thank you for reading. Rory, when Marilyn made the suggestion about 8th graders, I chuckled as I pictured the science labs I had in high school. But, instead of students doing 9th-grade physics experiments at rows of long tables, I imagined 8th graders bent over oranges and the room completely quiet. More likely, of course, there would be a seed-spitting contest, and that wouldn't be such a bad thing. Let me know if your son's class takes up peeling oranges.
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely, thoughtful post! Too often, I find myself reaching for the easy to eat, don't need to pay attention to it food...
ReplyDeleteOne of my children's teachers had a lovely habit of transitioning from activity to activity with a simple yoga pose for the kids; they had to do one that one thing with attention several times a day. It was one of the calmest classrooms I've ever been in -- and that's saying a lot for first graders!
a nice read for my first blog-read and response. you make me want to have an orange :)
ReplyDeleteMichelle Curcio
Sara, that first grade teacher sounds wonderful. Thanks for sharing that story. I might have to try doing a yoga pose as a transition myself. It would be good for me in so many ways.
ReplyDeleteMichelle, I'm honored to be your first blog read. I hope you had that orange!