orange, the teeth break the skin, the juice sprays into the mouth, and I think of orange slices given to us when I played soccer as a kid, somebody's idea of a vitamin pick-me-up, some coach's wife (I'm half presuming half remembering) slicing up oranges the night before or the morning of the game, plastic bag full of slices, halftime, boys with orange slices in the mouth, pretending to be boxers with mouthguards, the fresh smell of the leftover skins, spitting out seeds
the smell and the stickyness linger on your fingers, the smell for reasons I do not understand makes me think of my grandparents' kitchen - did my grandfather eat oranges with breakfast? I have no recollection of this but the picture still comes, my grandmother's kitchen in the house we sold a few years ago, strangers living there now; but that table in my kitchen now.
My kitchen does not smell of oranges.
Maybe it should.
Mom would usually pack an apple or a pear into our lunches, but every once in a while, an orange. Hard for young fingers to break the skin to start to peel, messy, sticky.
Yet the smell also in cleaners, soap, degreaser...