The Wisdom of Grapefruits

One morning at breakfast — I was probably in second grade — my father showed me how to squeeze the juice out of the grapefruit half I had just finished eating. He instructed me to push the two sides of the grapefruit together and squeeze the juice into my waiting spoon. I was amazed at how much juice came out. We had those cool little grapefruit spoons with ends that looked as if they had been cut by pinking shears. Then my father said, “Watch this,” as he brought the other two sides of the grapefruit half together and squeezed. Even more juice came out! It worked when I tried it with my grapefruit too. My father is long gone but his grapefruit lesson lives on. I use this technique when I wring out my wet hair after taking a shower. First I twist in one direction and then in the other. It helps me to remember that if a particular solution to a problem doesn’t work that I should probably approach the problem from a different direction. I have grown to understand that even though metaphors are a great way to explain things, sometimes people need an additional metaphor that describes a particular situation from a different angle in order to understand it. My father taught me that you can learn a lot from a piece of fruit, which in turn has taught me that almost everything I notice provides wisdom I can use in various ways in my life. My dad left me a lot of love and wisdom, but this one small thing is up there with the best of what he gave to me.

Cinse Bonino
2024