it's raining grapefruits

After yesterday's cold stormy weather, we awoke this morning to bright, warm sunshine. And new beginnings. Em and I decided to go running along Palmer Avenue, where some of the beautiful old Spanish-style villas still grace the lakeside. They're some of the last ones left standing in Winter Park—a town of new, ever-expanding stucco mansions. The hibisbus were in bloom and the Sunday breeze enveloped the avenue in a calm breath.

We turned down towards the old massive Alabama Hotel overlooking the lake, where Great Granny Ann lived till her last days, and stopped to stretch at the little park by the water. There's an echo chamber there. It looks like a Greek ampitheater and if you stand in a certain spot and face the stone columns, your voice will carry far away behind you over the surface of the water to the houses beyond and up into the sky.

I looked up at one of the trees covered in moss and noticed a few yellow citrus still clinging to the tall branches.

"Hey Em, come here. It's a grapefruit tree!"

She walked over and we stood there looking up. Suddenly a water-logged fruit dropped from it's high perch and landed with a thud right at our feet. We looked at each other in wonder. I picked it up of the ground. The fall had cracked its thick skin and a clear sticky syrup was seeping out.

"I dare you to eat some," I said to her. "I'll eat this part." I tore the grapefruit in half and gave some to her. The flesh was so juicy. I sunk my teeth into it. Sun-ripened, sweet, and heavenly.

We finished the whole thing and then started licking our sticky fingers. It was the sweetest and most wonderful fruit we'd ever tasted. "It's from Papa Roger!" Em said. Grapefruit from the heavens.