They're just oranges, a whole box of them, and it's just a rainy spring afternoon, and all I have is a wooden reamer, a sharp knife, a strainer, and a batter bowl to catch the juice, sunny-orange, as it bursts from all those many tiny pockets. The room smells sweet and tangy, as it should when juice is flowing.
Two boys come in from the steady rain, shake loose the sopping shoes and leave them tossed, smell the citrus smell, and ask for a some.
I set two drinks down, one for each, to slow-savor (or gulp right down) over many rounds of Mancala at the kitchen table.
I ream some more, the seeds catch, the pulp, too, and the juice fills.
It's a simple thing that's occupying my hands on an afternoon when a thousand other things could be done, instead. I could be straight-up efficient. I could be folding the laundry that sits in the dryer, I could vacuum the rugs, I could put those math books away that still sit, stacked, on the table. I could buy oranges already juiced and ready to pour. I could trim the workings of the household down to the leanest, meanest, most efficient machine, yes, I could. And sometimes I do.
But right now I'm glad for this many oranges in a box at my feet. Glad for the rythmn of the twist, the pour of the juice, the light notes of orange (and the boys who ask for a taste). I'm glad for the connection to making, to crafting, with the simplest of tools, those tumblersful that are requested and savored more because I did.
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