{"id":3831,"date":"2023-07-17T00:16:49","date_gmt":"2023-07-17T00:16:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/writers-house-review\/?page_id=3831"},"modified":"2023-11-20T21:18:46","modified_gmt":"2023-11-20T21:18:46","slug":"orange-peels","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/writers-house-review\/vol-4-winter-2023-2024\/orange-peels\/","title":{"rendered":"Orange Peels"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Anne Ming<\/em><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

Your father is holding an orange, calloused hands. Gentle<\/span><\/p>\n

hands. Work exhausts him. At home he sits on the sofa,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

scraping rind from flesh in one long peel.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The orange is from San Joaquin, California. It\u2019s picked from<\/span><\/p>\n

the tree not quite ripe and packed in with its peers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It travels two thousand miles to arrive here.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Across the country, your father hands it to you. You<\/span><\/p>\n

open it up: halves, quarters, slices. The white pith of it<\/span><\/p>\n

webs like snow.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Your father is a writer, but his words are rare. So,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

remember this as love. Your father is Chinese,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

but he must be American. So, remember this as home.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When you leave home, your mother gives you a bag of mandarins\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

to take with you. It\u2019s a symbol of good luck,<\/span><\/p>\n

all of it, down to the red mesh sack.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But in that moment, your mother isn\u2019t thinking<\/span><\/p>\n

of fortune. She\u2019s thinking about how<\/span><\/p>\n

when you were younger, she used to pack oranges in your lunch;<\/span><\/p>\n

how you learned that she dried the peels to use in cooking;<\/span><\/p>\n

how you started saving your peels for her, after.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The orange is a whole history of the world; it\u2019s a whole history of\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

you. Meanwhile, the flowering trees are blooming again.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, your life goes on and on and on.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On the windowsill, the peels dry and harden;\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

there are more there than your mother could ever need. And<\/span><\/p>\n

the sunlight streams through the open window. And your father is humming<\/span><\/p>\n

again\u2014an old, wordless song that carries on the springtime breeze,<\/span><\/p>\n

past all your past, across the miles,<\/span><\/p>\n

and into you.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Anne Ming<\/strong>, class of 2026, is from Rockville, Maryland. She says, \u201cLook, Mom! If you\u2019re reading this, you made it into the Rutgers Writers House Review<\/em>! Please translate it for Dad, since he\u2019s here too. I love you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Anne wrote this poem in a creative writing class taught by Professor Paul Blaney. Blaney selected the piece for inclusion in WHR<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anne Ming   Your father is holding an orange, calloused hands. Gentle hands. Work exhausts him. At home he sits on the sofa,\u00a0 scraping rind from flesh in one long … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2513,"featured_media":0,"parent":3525,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3831","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nOrange Peels - Writers House Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/writers-house-review\/vol-4-winter-2023-2024\/orange-peels\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Orange Peels - Writers House Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Anne Ming   Your father is holding an orange, calloused hands. Gentle hands. Work exhausts him. 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