I suppose I heard it on the street. On tv. Someone called it a lemon. Maybe it was a car. Loving yellow, I looked around. I didn’t see anything. When explained that it meant something bad, something not up to standards, well, I just wasn’t having it. Not my lemons, my beautiful yellow friends. The color of my bedroom, my bedspread. The highlighter of all things important in every book. If anything, I thought they were more than special, these “lemons.” Braving all that light. I wanted to be that brave. Shining in a color so brilliant. What would be given so much notice, if it weren’t worth seeing?
It’s not always as easy now. As the “lemons” get bigger. But I think, still, maybe this isn’t bad, it simply needs to be seen. And maybe I’m not the beautiful glorious yellow of it all. Sometimes I’m the book, carrying all the highlighted words. Sometimes I’m just the table. Worn and weary, but smart enough to hold up the light of the lemon.
Maybe that’s too simple, but I’m not sure everything has to be so hard. So I highlight the words in my heart. Stand strong. Give me your biggest lemon. I know what to do.
I imagine there are some people in this world who do the right thing and then build on it. And by right I don’t mean proper, but successful. That is to say they are victorious, and then victorious once again. I don’t know these people, and I’m certainly not one of them.
Most of my successes (and joys for that matter) have come from standing, not on the shoulders of giants, but lemons. And while a lemon won’t hold you steady, it will teach you the true meaning of balance with every wobble. Every victory will be earned. Maybe not the first time, nor even the second. But oh, how it will let you shine in that glow of the yellow. The yellow of bloom and blossom. Of sunlight and growth. Of evening lamp lit long into the study. Of the morning that comes again and again, whispering try, just try. The yellow that keeps the farmer planting. The grandmother washing dishes. The single mother walking to the office for little wage. The daughter studying for a school they can’t afford to pay, one she can’t afford to miss. Beautiful, and glorious lemons.
I paint them again and again, as the heroes of my story. The bright and shiny yellows of my life, my love.
First I sanded it. Then cut it. Then sanded it again. It smelled brand new, this wood — this wood that he gave to me from the scrap pile. I squared it. Nailed it. Then stretched the material over this frame. I gessoed the canvas, and gessoed it again. And then I began to paint. I was invested long before the image came out. Long before the yellows and greens. Before the dimension rose from the surface. It was a part of me. A part of him. A part of the field of overgrown weeds, on the side of the mountain. A part of the story.
I was reading the reviews to the last book I read — a book that I adored. I wanted to be a part of the group – a part of the people talking about the experience. Most of the reviews were positive, but there was one that I just couldn’t believe. Now, I know that everyone doesn’t like the same thing, and that’s fine, but this negative review was so ridiculous in its reasoning. It said,(surrounded by a lot of other unflattering words) “it was just a bunch of stories.” What??? I still can’t believe it. Yes, it was, as you say, a bunch of stories. It was a grouping of beautiful stories. A gathering of lives. Because isn’t that all we are – a gathering of stories? Those we have lived through. Shared. The stories that trigger your memory. The stories that help you get through your own story. Gather you into mine. The stories that make a path. Guide you into the future. Comfort you in the darkness. Laugh with you in the light. These are our lives. All of these stories. And to me, that is beautiful!
These stories of my mother, my grandparents, my schoolmates and friends, these are the piles of scattered wood that, when treated with care, take on new form, new life. I know this painting of the lemons won’t last forever. But I’d like to think that one day, after it hangs in one home, then another, maybe it gets painted over, and hung again, or maybe restretched with a new canvas, maybe the wood frames a different painting, or braces a different structure, maybe eventually it burns in the fireplace, and comforts you as you share your story with the one you love.
