‘Take life as if it was an orange’

Feeling overwhelmed? Don’t know where to begin?

Last week, a dear friend sent me a box of oranges for my birthday. And each glorious fruit reminded me of one of life’s best hacks. “Take life like it was an orange.”  A peeled one. One piece at a time.

Eleven years ago, I found myself in an impossible situation. It was like the universe aligned to make me cross a river with stepping stones that were a meter apart. I had no idea how to get to the other side.

My beloved father Frank Mayor had just died, and after a healing trip to Lourdes with my mother Sonia and my sisters, I came out spiritually uplifted but loaded with two jugs of holy water. We went our separate ways after that while I proceeded to two business meetings in Italy.

I boarded a train from Florence to Treviso, with a train change and connection in Mestre. I was travelling by myself with two pieces of hard-case luggage with wheels, one weighing about 21 kilos (with two small jugs of holy water from Lourdes inside), the other piece, about 10 kilos. Not quite a gargantuan load, really, except that I was travelling by myself on the last leg of a two-week trip. I am also lampa. On an uninterrupted ride, two pieces of luggage wouldn’t be so daunting. But switching trains in stations that had no porters or trolleys wasn’t just a challenge. It was a circus act.

Hoisting myself up the train alone seemed like hurdling a waist-high beam. I knew I couldn’t do it by myself. (When travelling alone, two pieces of hard-case luggage with wheels are harder to manage. It is better to have one hard-case with wheels and the other, a duffel bag or tote you can sling over one shoulder, no matter how heavy.)

Fortunately, before my train departed Florence, Gianluca Foa, the commercial director of Santa Maria Novella, gallantly escorted me to my seat and helped deposit my bigger suitcase in a vacant space inside the train. I kept my carry-on near me.

Gianluca saw the fear in my eyes. A tall and well-built Italian, he found my suitcases quite a load himself. So he knew why I feared the road ahead  — getting off the crowded train in rush hour, switching platforms and getting on a new train with two pieces of luggage and a shoulder bag in tow. If I disembarked a minute too late, the train’s automatic doors would shut close and I was going to be trapped till the next stop. Worse, my phone’s battery (those were the days before portable power banks) was ebbing and my charger was deep inside my suitcase (How could a journalist like me gloss over that game-changing detail?). Even if I managed to fish it out, I needed an adaptor to recharge my phone. (Always bring adaptors in your hand luggage when travelling in Europe just in case your power bank runs out, too. I often relied on the hotels’ adaptors and didn’t foresee emergencies in train stations and airports where I might need them.) I prayed — if I missed my connection, perhaps the Red Cross would take me in?

Gianluca probably saw all the what if’s playing on my mind like a movie on fast-forward. The immediate future (actually, the next two hours) seemed such a burden for a 5-ft.-3-in. damsel in distress used to the conveniences and luxuries (read: porters) of a Third World country (what an irony, but true).

“Take life like it was an orange,” Gianluca advised me as I settled on my train seat, my eyes seeing lemons instead of oranges. “Take things one at a time. Piece by piece. Don’t bite into life like it were an apple; don’t take it in one big bite.” That piece of advice calmed me down like an orange-flavored sedative. Seeing orange since then has helped me cope with life’s lemons.

I focused on the first leg of the trip. The first ear of my imaginary orange.

Shortly before my first stop, I hauled my big suitcase to my side and positioned it on the aisle beside my seat. Then I put the smaller piece on top of it. An old lady scolded me in Italian for doing so, because the suitcase occupied about one half of the aisle. But I was desperate.

Then from behind, I heard a woman say in English to her husband. “I am going on ahead so I can help her (referring to me) with her carry-on and then you can help her with the bigger suitcase.”

I turned around and saw an American couple who might as well have had halos on their heads instead of hats. They helped me out of the train and into the platform, about two feet down, about a step or two away.

One piece of life’s orange chewed without difficulty.

On the platform where I got off my train in Mestre, I was told my connecting train was two platforms away. There were no alleys to connect the platforms. “You have to go down,” a uniformed employee told me.

“Are there escalators or elevators?” I asked hopefully. She shook her head. “Only the stairs.”

The train to Treviso was about to arrive in 10 minutes, and trains in Europe are always on time. How do I manage this next piece of my orange?

I suddenly spotted a swarthy man loitering on the platform and he asked me if I needed help. I knew he was an unofficial “porter” for hire. I couldn’t tell if he was trustworthy but we Filipinos have a term for our actions in desperate times: kapit sa patalim. I knew he could run off with my luggage — and my holy water. But unless I wanted to miss my train and sleep on the platform with a dead phone and a battered ego, I took the risk and said, “Okay.”

The man carried my luggage effortlessly down many steps (the equivalent of about two flights of stairs) and hauled them up again to the door of my connecting train. I gave him the most generous tip of my life.

Second piece of my orange out of the way. I was now more confident about the future.

With elbow grease and a prayer, I managed to haul up my baggage into the jampacked train that was going to take me to Treviso. But to my horror, I found out that there was no more space for my suitcase, that big, black, hard-case monster (The most important lesson I never learn: Travel light!). I left it near the door of the cabin assigned to me. Bahala na, if anybody dares steal it.

I walked down the aisle looking for an empty seat, and finding none, walked further down. Somebody patted my arm. Oh my God, did I annoy somebody again this time? But when I turned around, that person was already on his feet, offering me his seat with a smile.

“Thank you,” I sighed. When I settled in my seat, I turned around to check on my luggage. The man smiled with all the brightness of the Miami sun (where he later told me he was from) and reassured me, “Don’t worry, I will keep an eye on your luggage, too.” He was traveling with a male friend and the latter’s parents.

When we reached my final train stop, this angel on a train, despite being on his feet for about 45 minutes, not only brought down my luggage to the platform. He carried it down another two flights of stairs, then up again two flights to the train station’s main lobby.

“Will you be alright now?” he asked.

“Yes,” I answered as I clasped his hand in gratitude. “And I wouldn’t have gotten this far without you and your friend. Thank you, thank you.” Then he disappeared just as suddenly as he had appeared in my life.

Fourth piece of orange chewed.

At the Treviso station, Luciana Olivotto of Acca Kappa was supposed to meet me. We had not met and did not know how the other looked. And my phone had gone completely dead.

About 10 minutes had passed. Maybe it was time to call the Red Cross... Then a smartly dressed lady walked into the train station’s lobby and our eyes met.

“Joanne?”

“Luciana?” I heaved a big sigh of relief.

“Your train was early… and I kept calling you to tell you that I was on the way but I couldn’t reach you,” she began.

I smiled from ear to ear. I was home free. On a day when I was prepared to meet demons, I was pampered by angels instead.

And I was looking forward to a glass of soothing orange juice to cap a long and exciting day. After all, I had just peeled a big orange from Florence to Treviso.

So, next time you feel like life has thrown you lemons — turn them into oranges instead.

(You may e-mail me at joanneraeramirez @yahoo.com. Follow me on Instagram @joanneraeramirez.)