Tangelo Dream

Sitting on my porch feeling the spring-like breeze and watching a small dancing butterfly, I am both here and also not here – one foot in this world and one foot in some distant place of long ago. Taking another bite of the little orange fruit sends me back in time to my childhood, not to any specific memory or point in time, but to something nameless and fuzzy.

Simply, “back then.”

Every juicy piece a tiny treasure, it tastes so familiar all at once, like a long lost friend. What is this thing? The market bin had claimed it a tangelo, but there are no little stickers bearing it’s name. The large protruding navel-bump on one end is it’s only distinguishing character.

Until you slide a small section into your mouth and experience that unique flavor that is both like an orange and not.

As far as orange citrus fruits go, I am lost.

Usually only buying navel oranges, I couldn’t tell you which is which. I certainly couldn’t identify them in a taste test. But the body knows. The brain remembers. Another bite and my tongue says, “This I know.

”

And as the last succulent section is consumed, the last glimpse into that fuzzy somewhere slips away. And all at once,… it is gone.