Hello and Happy Valentineās Day! I love this holiday because I think itās fun to celebrate love in all its magical, mythical, corny forms. I loved the grade school valentine exchange where everyone furtively slipped generic store-bought cards into little homemade post office boxes installed on each desk or cubby, and I still love making valentines for friends and lovers (although, admittedly, I havenāt gotten around to it this year). Take a little extra time today to tell all your people that you love them, and take some time to loveāand romance!āyourself, too. š¹
On another note, Iām going to change up the format of mine Oranges so that I can make it more consistent. I donāt want to share writing when I donāt actually have anything of interest/importance to say, which feels like the majority of the time lately. But I still like using this newsletter as a way to check in and share things, so once a week Iām going to share a snippet of Prose, a Poem, and a Picture, as well as Five Things.
ā§ Prose
I donāt really intend to share my prose here very often, but I just wrote this little flash fiction piece last week that Iāll share to start things off.
Kleenex for Weeping Mom
Once a time I was eating yogurt in the morning and it was cherry and I ate it with my spoon because I can do that because Iām two. But once a time I was a baby and the spoon was an airplane and the yogurt came to me on the airplane. So I decided to be littler littler littler and I gave mama my spoon and I saidā¦ feed me! And the airplane returned, with the yogurt. The cherry yogurt. And in that way, I ate it all.
Once a time, the same day, I was eating lunch and I was me. I was two, eating grow food. Grow food is like green beans and apple skins. I was eating all my grow food so fast so fast and I said Iām never gonna stop growing! And mama said no! Stay little forever! So I told her donāt worry, when Iām littler littler and a baby again, Iāll stop growing. I can be littler littler like, whenever. But I keep eating apple skins and my toes keep getting longer.
A few hours later, I received a bowl of blueberries. Cut blueberries, like Iām a baby or something. I was irate, screaming. Iām a cautious eater! I shrieked. Still, whole blueberries were not forthcoming. I flipped the bowl of cut blueberries over, scattering them across my high chair. The effect was wholly undesirable: mama ripped me out of my chair and sent me to my room. The possibility of whole blueberries diminished rapidly. I crept back to the kitchen. Mama was hunched over my high chair, collecting the cut blueberries in my bowl. Then she stood in the middle of the kitchen and tipped the bowl to her mouth, spilling all of the blueberry halves in at once. I screamed her name.
ā§ Poem
Crush by Ada LimĆ³n
Maybe my limbs are made
mostly for decoration,
like the way I feel about
persimmons. You canāt
really eat them. Or you
wouldnāt want to. If you grab
the soft skin with your fist
it somehow feels funny,
like youāve been here
before and uncomfortable,
too, like youād rather
squish it between your teeth
impatiently, before spitting
the soft parts back up
to linger on the tongue like
burnt sugar or guilt.
For starters, it was all
an accident, you cut
the right branch
and a sort of light
woke up underneath,
and the inedible fruit
grew dark and needy.
Think crucial hanging.
Think crayon orange.
There is one low, leaning
heart-shaped globe left
and dearest, can you
tell, I am trying
to love you less.
ā§ Picture
Grace Milk, Dinner for lovers, gouache and pen on paper
ā§ Five Things
A perfect V-day read: ālove and slush puddlesā by Helena Fitzgerald
An interesting piece on what ācountercultureā looks like today: āThe internet didnāt kill countercultureāyou just wonāt find it on Instagramā by Caroline Busta
If youāre the kind of person who likes to collect images or files in various folders on your desktop/Pinterest/Arena/etc, you might be interested in this series Iāve come across called A Folder, hosted by the Museum of Preventive Imagination, āin which the guest shares their screen to narrate a specific collection, random obsession, sustained inspiration, or longterm research found within a specific folder living on their laptop.ā Lexie Smith gave the first presentation in December, which you can check out here, and the rest are on YouTube.
In 1971, JEB (Joan E. Biren) self-published a book of her photographs of lesbians, which is being reprinted for the first time since! You can go ahead and pre-order Eye to Eye: Portraits of Lesbians here.
In honor of Black History Month, which is every month of the year, hereās one of @alokvmenonās book reports highlighting Black trans leaders from history:
Thatās it for now. Iām sending you lots of love today! And every day. ā¦ Ava