Throw tangerines at me and I'll make a cake with them

I spent two full weeks buried in Search Console. URL matrices, indexing checks, sitemaps, a document I built as v1, v2, v999, _final-OK, and rebuilt again until every box showed a little green check instead of a red cross, H1 tweaks, back to testing. One click, another click, another one after that.

The book I'm putting together sat there, digitally abandoned. It wasn't that I didn't know what to write. It was worse: I felt like I had nothing to say. I kept opening tabs looking for how so and so started, how someone else told it, looking outside for something that's supposed to come from inside. And while that wasn't happening, I put every chip of energy and attention into mechanical tasks. Valid ones? Plenty, sure. But were they really meant for right then? Maybe not.

One of those Sundays I was rushing past a house with a box out on the sidewalk. Behind it, a girl sat on the doorstep with her eyes closed, facing the sun, a dog, and a kid kicking a ball around. Something there made me slow down.

Exactly how I found it, sign included.

The sign said "We're giving away tangerines." Pure sweetness, that. The little bags were fresh off the roll, the note handwritten, everything generous, easygoing, my pace dropped a thousand rpm.

On my way back I asked if I could take a photo. The girl said yes, and offered me a bag on top of it. "They're not the sweetest, but they're excellent for baking a cake."

I connected every dot right there, got home, closed every tab in my browser, and right away opened the folder of drafts and half-finished texts I already had, sitting there for months, waiting for someone to do something with them.

It was like Newton, but with a different fruit.

Throw tangerines at me and I'll make a cake with them.

J.