It’s All How You Slice It

Earlier this week, I was enjoying a lovely little cara cara orange for dessert after supper. My son was still at the table and, kind of without thinking about it, I started to slice the rind as my mother did. She would score a circle at the top and bottom and then score lines vertically between the two to make little, easy to peel sections.

As I was doing this, suddenly a core memory popped up that I hadn’t thought of years. The act of peeling as my mother had, brought it up fresh so, as he was nearby, I shared it with my son:

As children, my brother and I would wait for our mom to open the oranges for us (if you’ve seen a child murder an orange via the rind you understand why she did this for us!). We would wait anxiously and excitedly as she peeled it to see if we would each get a highly coveted and difficult to procure, orange umbrella.

Umbrellas

Uh. What’s an orange umbrella, you ask? WELL. Known only within the Gust household circa 1980-1992 it is the top rind of the orange extracted carefully to have the long centre pith still attached and thus creating what we lovingly termed an orange umbrella. If successful the recipient would proudly (and mockingly because… siblings) sing, I’ve got an umbrella and yooooooou don’t! I had a chuckle to myself as I rehearsed the story to my son and immediately sent a photo to my brother. Our parents are both gone now so it’s only he and I that can share these random inside jokes and walks down memory lane.

He laughed at my story mostly because he thought it was ridiculous. And it is! Through giggles all I could get out in way of an explanation was that kids are crazy.  

As I’ve been thinking about the orange umbrellas this week I suppose naturally it’s had me thinking back to simpler times. My kids have toys and video games and no commercials and endless (truly ENDLESS) options for entertainment. It made my own anticipation of an orange rind seem simple and almost ridiculous in contrast.

As we tell our kids often, more doesn’t necessarily mean better. Sometimes, strangely, it’s actually kinda worse. It means they don’t actually play with their toys because they can’t even wade through what they have to even decide on what they want to do or what they want to play with. IMAGINE. 

It also got me thinking about my adult life and how so few of us lack clothes but we still get stuck. I myself cannot claim to be a minimalist. I am what we in this house lovingly call a “collector.” The term was coined originally as a euphemism for my parents’ depression era upbringings that left them with an almost compulsive need to keep whatever they had. I have a lot of clothes in my closet (too many likely) but despite this, there is a clear through line. There is a theme and overarching direction to it. I wouldn’t say everything goes with everything else but everything very much feels like me.

Sometimes what we lack isn’t choice. It might instead by clarity or direction. Just like too many options make my kids unable to pick an activity or show or enjoy the simple anticipation of a stupid orange umbrella, the same is true for our closets. If there’s too much it can be hard to focus in and find that one thing (or combination of things) that really resonate. Less can be more for sure. Eliminate visual clutter, etc. But maybe rather than getting rid of so much we need to instead look for patterns and give ourselves permission (and space) to really dig into what we like, what excites us, what actually feels special.

My orange peel awakening this week was a great reminder of simple joys, of simple bits of life. It feels a little trite to say my orange umbrella was earth shattering but I can say it did invite me to pause and take stock of the silly, fun bits. And know what? It would make me so happy if your closet was one of those bits. Have fun with your closets! Let yourself experiment and build up pieces you genuinely like. Spend some time thinking about what you like, why you like it and if you could actually give yourself permission to try. Whether it’s orange peels or sequin skirts, a little reminder of simple pleasures never goes amiss.