There are index cards on my desk that record things I thought of or saw or remembered or overheard … there is even one from years ago when I was walking along the salt marsh between Sausalito and Mill Valley. Bicyclists were passing me on both sides, and I wasn’t paying much attention until suddenly a woman rode past wearing some sort of lemon perfume. And in a split second I was in one of those Proustian olfactory flashbacks, twenty-five or so years before, in the kitchen of one of my aunts, with her many children, my cousins, on a hot summer day. I was the eldest, at eight or so, and my aunt and uncle had just gotten divorced. She was sad and worried, and I think to soothe herself and help her wounded ego, she had done a little retail therapy: she’d gone to the store and spend several dollars on a lemonade-making contraption.
Of course, it goes without saying that to make lemonade, all you need is a pitcher, a lemon-juice squeezer, ice cubes, water, and sugar. That’s all. Oh, and a long spoon. But my aunt was a little depressed, and this lemonade-making thing must have seemed like something that would be fun and maybe hydrate her life a little, filling her desiccated spirit with nice, cool, sweet lemonade. The contraption consisted of a glass pitcher, with a lemon squeezer that fit on top and that had a holding tank for the lemon juice. What you did was to fill the pitcher with water and ice cubes and sugar, then put the squeezer -- with is holding tank -- on top, squeeze a bunch of lemons, then put the lemon juice from the holding tank into the pitcher. Finally, you got your long spoon and stirred. The lemon googe and seeds stayed on top in the juice squeezer. The whole thing was very efficient, but if you thought about it too long, totally stupid, too.
So there we were in the kitchen, the five cousins and me, crowded around her as she proudly made us lemonade. She put the cold water in the pitcher, added ice cubes, lots of sugar, put the juicer lid on top, squeezed a dozen lemons, and then began to take glasses down from the cupboard. Wait! we older ones wanted to cry out, you haven’t poured in the lemon juice. Stop! Mistakes are being made! But she got out jelly glasses, plastic glasses, a couple of brilliant aluminum glasses, and poured even servings. There we were, six anxious black-belt codependents, unable to breathe, with a longing for everything to be Okay and for her not to be sad anymore. She raised her glass to us as a toast, and we took sips of our sugary ice water, and my aunt’s hands were so lemony from cutting and squeezing all those lemons that she must have tasted lemon. We all stared at her helplessly as we drank our sugar water, then smiled and raised our glasses like we were doing a soft-drink commercial, and held them out for more.
I perfectly remembered, there on the salt marsh, the crummy linoleum on my aunt’s kitchen floor, graying beige speckled with black, and how it wore away to all back near the sink, and how at it’s most worn place, rotten wood showed through. And how all those cousins, some so young they must have thought ice-cold sugar water was about as good as the getting got, stood at the sink with us older kids, in a ring around my aunt. And how close I felt to them all, how much a part of the wheel.
It touches me deeply, the poignancy of the crummy linoleum, of my aunt’s pain and her pride in her lemonade-making machine, of all the ways in which we try to comfort ourselves, of her wanting to make us better lemonade, of us wanting to make her better, the enthusiasm with which we drank and held out our glasses, as if we were hoisting steins at Oktoberfest. And I hadn’t remembered any of this in twenty-five years.
Now maybe I’m not going to use it anywhere. All the index card says is “The lemonade-making thing.” But it’s like a snippet from a movie, a vignette of a family in pain, managing to survive, one of those rare moments when people’s hearts are opened by disappointment and love, and for just a few minutes, against all odds, everything is more or less Okay.
There are index cards on my desk that record things I thought of or saw or remembered or overheard … there is even one from years ago when I was walking along the salt marsh between Sausalito and Mill Valley. Bicyclists were passing me on both sides, and I wasn’t paying much attention until suddenly a woman rode past wearing some sort of lemon perfume. And in a split second I was in one of those Proustian olfactory flashbacks, twenty-five or so years before, in the kitchen of one of my aunts, with her many children, my cousins, on a hot summer day. I was the eldest, at eight or so, and my aunt and uncle had just gotten divorced. She was sad and worried, and I think to soothe herself and help her wounded ego, she had done a little retail therapy: she’d gone to the store and spend several dollars on a lemonade-making contraption.
Of course, it goes without saying that to make lemonade, all you need is a pitcher, a lemon-juice squeezer, ice cubes, water, and sugar. That’s all. Oh, and a long spoon. But my aunt was a little depressed, and this lemonade-making thing must have seemed like something that would be fun and maybe hydrate her life a little, filling her desiccated spirit with nice, cool, sweet lemonade. The contraption consisted of a glass pitcher, with a lemon squeezer that fit on top and that had a holding tank for the lemon juice. What you did was to fill the pitcher with water and ice cubes and sugar, then put the squeezer -- with is holding tank -- on top, squeeze a bunch of lemons, then put the lemon juice from the holding tank into the pitcher. Finally, you got your long spoon and stirred. The lemon googe and seeds stayed on top in the juice squeezer. The whole thing was very efficient, but if you thought about it too long, totally stupid, too.
So there we were in the kitchen, the five cousins and me, crowded around her as she proudly made us lemonade. She put the cold water in the pitcher, added ice cubes, lots of sugar, put the juicer lid on top, squeezed a dozen lemons, and then began to take glasses down from the cupboard. Wait! we older ones wanted to cry out, you haven’t poured in the lemon juice. Stop! Mistakes are being made! But she got out jelly glasses, plastic glasses, a couple of brilliant aluminum glasses, and poured even servings. There we were, six anxious black-belt codependents, unable to breathe, with a longing for everything to be Okay and for her not to be sad anymore. She raised her glass to us as a toast, and we took sips of our sugary ice water, and my aunt’s hands were so lemony from cutting and squeezing all those lemons that she must have tasted lemon. We all stared at her helplessly as we drank our sugar water, then smiled and raised our glasses like we were doing a soft-drink commercial, and held them out for more.
I perfectly remembered, there on the salt marsh, the crummy linoleum on my aunt’s kitchen floor, graying beige speckled with black, and how it wore away to all back near the sink, and how at it’s most worn place, rotten wood showed through. And how all those cousins, some so young they must have thought ice-cold sugar water was about as good as the getting got, stood at the sink with us older kids, in a ring around my aunt. And how close I felt to them all, how much a part of the wheel.
It touches me deeply, the poignancy of the crummy linoleum, of my aunt’s pain and her pride in her lemonade-making machine, of all the ways in which we try to comfort ourselves, of her wanting to make us better lemonade, of us wanting to make her better, the enthusiasm with which we drank and held out our glasses, as if we were hoisting steins at Oktoberfest. And I hadn’t remembered any of this in twenty-five years.
Now maybe I’m not going to use it anywhere. All the index card says is “The lemonade-making thing.” But it’s like a snippet from a movie, a vignette of a family in pain, managing to survive, one of those rare moments when people’s hearts are opened by disappointment and love, and for just a few minutes, against all odds, everything is more or less Okay.