Oranges by Maxwell Harris

Oranges 

By Maxwell Harris

The ironic part about inspiration found amid a crisp, pulpy glass of orange juice lies not in the absurdity behind motivation in citrus fruit, but rather in the reality that inspiration is imminent everywhere.  

Like oranges, I find the messy parts of life have the most flavor. From being drenched in oil, listening to the crank of a turning motor, overloading software programs to crash and lose hours of painstaking work, setting fire to a PC during a simple repair, flooding a bathroom, or even calling poison control twice in the same year over home chemistry experiments gone wrong, I always prefer biting into a task and letting the juices flow over taking clean slices.  

My relentless perseverance to take defeats head-on derives from nothing less than the bump of a measly glass of orange juice. Moments away from attaching my last support beam onto the sturdiest truss bridge I had ever designed, an act of god caused me to move a leg (or it just itched, I do not quite remember), knocking over my juice. My competition piece was seemingly ruined: phenolic compounds devoured the adhesive, sticky sucrose frosted the tips of wood fibers, and best of all, a morning-orange horizon printed itself across all of my white wood blocks. With what only felt like nanoseconds to spare, I rushed to set the oven to three-hundred-fifty degrees, hoping to salvage my bridge for the following day’s competition. After taking my blocks out of the oven, I had an epiphany and split open the metaphoric orange once again. Looking at the wooden pieces, I realized what was once dirty, stiff, and impenetrable was now a clean, moldable, and tender piece of building material. Quickly, I threw out my old plans and started bending my blocks into fine arcs: the most unique and material-efficient bridge of the whole class.  

While trying after failing may seem frustrating, I remind myself and those around me that it is through failure that we prevail. Learning from my mistakes and moving forward will never halt. From experiences such as this, season by season, I will ripen.