I just keep looking for the orange

I called a friend today.  I listened to her voice.  The words she spoke.  She is always so negative.  Not enough.  Too many problems.  Can't sleep.  Lonely.  It's always the same.  We are all struggling with these things I tell her.  Aging is managing pain.  "Do you use lavender on sleepless nights?" I asked her.  "Are you meditating?  Taking long walks?" I asked her.  Take one day at a time.  I just keep looking for the orange in the shibori dyed alpaca that hangs near the wood stove.  How did she become so pastel?  I evaluate my formula, my process.

 

She wants to come in so bad. I’ve seen her look through the dusty lace curtains. I’ve seen her float in the artemisia, but it wasn’t until the kiss that I realized how much she wanted in. I just keep looking for the orange—looking for it, rough and round, juicy and bright, pulling apart the sections, reaching for the seed, feeling the juice on my fingers, licking them, smelling orange. Maybe orange isn’t something you see, after all. Maybe it’s something you feel and smell and taste and swallow, and it fills you up with an excitement that’s impossible to push down, the way I try to ignore that I like to hear her voice on the phone, even though I tighten up and pretend I don’t.--The Garden Girls Letters and Journal