Oranges

2 days ago I went to do Yoga with a good friend of mine in Raanana. The sun was shining bright, I hadn't slept for two days, and Yoga was just what the doctor ordered. If you've ever not slept for 48+ hours, you know the mindset that I was in. Everything had a surreal glow to it, and all normal events seemed to carry with them a genuine significance of things much greater.

We had our usual conversation, consisting of relationships, meaning, being new to Israel, pursuits of the mind, inspiration and so on. I felt great, and was itching to get home and into my bed. As I drove her home, she asked if I liked oranges, and of course I said yeah. She claimed there was a place where you could get free oranges. I couldn't fathom how this could be a realistic option.

She navigated the car nearly 5 minutes through some dirt roads off of the main street, and suddenly the car was surrounded by a countryside of oranges. I pulled off into one of the rows of trees, and felt transformed back into a child at Disneyland, as though every single orange was there strictly for my picking.

She went one way, I the other, each searching for our perfect orange. She returned within a minute, orange freshly peeled, and watched me continue to search for mine. She told me how to choose a good one.(Since these were the large kind, there was a special tactic.) "You want a nice orange color, squeezable to the touch, and when you smell it, the more "orangie" the better." Easy enough.

For 1o minutes I searched, squeezing, smelling, climbing, ripping, tasting, but I could not find my orange. So, I grabbed the nearest orange, peeled it halfway , ate what I could through the opening in the skin, and then through it away.

My friend looked at me and said, "You know, that orange is a metaphor for your life." Interested, I asked her to elaborate, to which she replied, "You know exactly what you want from life, just as you know exactly what kind of orange you want. You search and search for it, not realizing that in your pursuit you are actually gaining the knowledge to find what it is you came for, and then when you are close, you give up and settle for something much less than you deserve."

Shocked would be one way to say it. Stunned perhaps more accurate. She was right. Now, I had seen the orange field mainly as a metaphor for my personal relationships, but I think it could be applied to many other parts of my life as well. The point was that I was settling for less than I deserved, mainly due to my lack of patience. (and consciousness as well)

Hope you all find your oranges...

Much love,
ZMP