🌿 Riding the Orange Bus

The orange bus idled in front of the packing house like a promise. Anyone who wanted to pick oranges could climb aboard, and that morning I did. I was the only white person on the bus, but for once I wasn’t the only female. The driver was a big, warm-hearted Black woman named Sally Mae, and one of the pickers was a Jamaican girl.

Sally offered me an orange bag to pick with but warned I’d have to buy it if I stayed on. Soon we were rolling toward the grove, where a tractor trailer delivered bins to all twelve pickers. The rhythm was simple: pick as fast as you could until the bins were full. By the time the bins ran out, I had filled four. Most of the others had six to eight, but the Jamaican girl had four too. Since pay came by the bin, anything less than four meant you couldn’t survive. For me, survival was the goal—and I was proud. Sally Mae was proud of me too.

Over time, Sally Mae took me under her wing. She became my surrogate mother, finding me a place to stay and defending me fiercely. I remember her announcing to everyone on the bus that I was one of them—even if I was white. I loved her for that.

Life on the bus was raw and real. Sometimes we’d stop to pick up a worker who wouldn’t come out because he was too hungover, and Sally would send a couple of guys in to drag him out. Every morning, the crew showed up at my door, and together we drove to a new grove. At night, they brought me back to the little house Sally had arranged for me in the orange grove.

Once in a while, another white newcomer would sit beside me and ask what it was like. My answer was always the same: “It’s hell.” And it was—for them. No white newcomer lasted more than a day that winter. But for me, it was different.

The outsiders came and went, unable to bear the grind. But we stayed—rooted in oranges, laughter, and belonging. For them it was hell; for us, it was home.

Come May, a letter arrived from my mother asking me to return to the farm to help out. It felt less like a request than a summons, a sign that it was time to go back. Leaving Sally was hard—we hugged, we cried, we promised—but promises couldn’t hold against time. It wasn’t meant to last, only meant to change me.

🌾 I Didn’t Look Back. Not Once.

A moment of surrender, a roadside meal, and a tent pitched at the edge of the sea.

                                      (the gown and backpack symbolize my dual existence)

I left my biological father in Massachusetts and with a backpack full of all my belongings, started walking down the road.

I began hitchhiking toward upstate New York—about 300 miles from where I stood. I’d heard there were apple orchards there, and I figured I could get a job picking fruit. I’d done some fruit picking before and liked the purity of it. You just get paid for what you pick. No résumé. No interviews. Just work.

I didn’t look back. Not once.

Ahead was work, orchards, and the promise of something clean.

I got a ride right away. But it was getting late, and the driver asked if I had a place to stay. I told him I had a tent and could pitch it anywhere. He insisted I come home with him, eat something, and then he’d take me to a beautiful beach where I could camp.

Of course I was scared. But I figured my life was in the hands of God now.

Not in a dramatic way—just in the way you stop fighting the current and let it carry you.

I got in.

True to his word, I found myself in his house, just me and him, eating a meal. I wasn’t afraid of him. I’m good at reading people, and he was just a normal guy.

But to my surprise, I was upset—because I was lost.

I didn’t know how to get back to the highway, and it was freaking me out.

I couldn’t tell if this man would return me to the road again.

But he did.

He drove me to the beach as promised, and it was a beautiful place to pitch my tent. The sand was pale and clean, the waves steady. I finally let go of my fear of being lost. My destination of picking fruit felt flimsy at best, so I decided I would rethink it in the morning, if he didn’t show up to bring me back to the road.

Reflection

Sometimes the road disappears. Sometimes the map dissolves in your hands.

But the tide rolls in, steady and soft, and you find yourself safe enough to sleep.