Lemonade: A Recipe I Keep Forgetting

I keep forgetting how to make lemonade. Here I am again, with a whole passel (or bushel, as it were) of lemons, staring me in the face. Oblong beasties, pebbly skin shouting up at me in an almost obscene shade of yellow. I mean, that's some bright fruit. They tend to roll off the counter, so I have to keep juggling them back into place while I think.

What am I supposed to do with these things? They are really starting to annoy me. I tried just pretending they weren't there, but you can't really avoid a whole bunch of lemons rolling all over your new granite countertops. (Yes, I have new granite countertops. Too bad I can't see them for all the lemons.)

Then I just got mad at them. Why do I have to get all the lemons? Why can't someone else have them, for once? It's like every week, I get a delivery of these obnoxious little monsters, and I have to deal with them. Sure, eventually I remember how to make lemonade, and all is well, but as soon as I turn around, there they are again.

Sometimes, I cry over the lemons, or get close. Now, that's a real waste of time, a real pointless consequence of a simple memory lapse. If I could just remember. If I could just remember to remember!

The worst part is making other people wait. If I were the only one who wanted a drink, it would be one thing, but with other people involved, there's a clock, you know?

Then, like a slap upside the head, it comes to me. Much like the name of Patsy's older sister Jacqui comes to Bubble in an almost regurgitant spasm (0:29 in), the recipe for lemonade spills out of my head and all those lemons seem like harmless little puppies. (Well, not puppies, really, you don't squeeze the juice out of puppies, but you know what I mean.)

And the lemonade is gooood.

Next time, I'll remember. And if it takes me a while, they're just lemons, after all!

Goooaaaallll!

The World Cup must be inspiring my little monster. He or she is kicking away with more frequency now, of course, only when it's just me. When Sean is home, the hybrid alien in my tummy snoozes away, offering an elbow here and there, but not enough for Sean to get his hands on. I'm sure he'll get a chance soon.

It feels like soda bubbles deep in my belly. Sometimes I pretend I'm Charlie in the Wonka Factory and I have to burp out the bubbles to keep from getting caught in the exhaust fan. Maybe that's just from the constant gas...

The Surf Sounds

Yesterday I got to hear an everyday miracle. It's true, it happens every day, all over the world, to all kinds of women.

At first I couldn't hear anything. I was holding my breath so I wouldn't miss anything. But there was nothing but a sound like the ocean echoing in the pink hollow of a conch shell. I wondered if there would be anything to hear, momentarily doubting my surety of the past two months.

Then suddenly, it was there. Woosh woosh woosh. Woosh woosh woosh.

My breath caught in my chest and tears sprung to my eyes, stinging them and doubling my vision. It was real. It was the sound of my baby's heartbeat. My baby. I'd been thinking of it as "the baby." Now it was "my baby."

How could this be happening to me? Will I be good enough to take care of something so important? What if I fail, what if I make mistakes? Nothing else in the entire world seems important at all anymore. Only my baby, keeping him or her safe, healthy and happy. I've never had this kind of single-mindedness, and it scares me. But fear keeps you on your toes, right? It's like performing. If you're not nervous, you won't be giving it your all!

How To Feel Pounds Lighter Without Losing Any Weight

Last night I hit the wall. For a few months I have been trying to have it all, do it all, and be the best while simultaneously not creating any income or moving forward in any significant way. Last night it all became too much, and I realized why everything had seemed so hard.

I have high standards. I have high expectations for the people I work with and for. It should go without saying that I also hold myself to those standards. But it had gotten out of control. I had found myself reacting defensively to anyone who reached out to me. Everyone wanted my time, but just to have it on hold. I was living in limbo. An e-mail would arrive and my first thought would be, in modern parlance, "WTF? Now I have to deal with this?" Not, "Gee, it sure is nice that someone out there thinks of me and needs my help or requests my presence." Where was my gratitude? Where was my kindness? I was stuck in a cycle of ego-fulfillment, rather than living a life of giving and receiving.

Last night I cried, because I realized how mean I have been. I thought about the look I put on my face (yes! I know I'm doing it!) to register my disgust and disappointment, and I knew I had done it to people I think of as friends, to strangers, even to myself. Passive aggressive superior muscle-flexing. But what is so superior about thinking you're better than someone else? I'm not better than anyone else. (No one else is better than me, either, don't get it twisted.) I'm so sorry that I hurt anyone's feelings. I don't want to be that person anymore.

How could I move forward if I was pushing everything away from me? How can I receive what I want if I can't give it away? I'm done with "Yes, but." I'm on to just "Yes." I felt tamped down into the ground. Now I feel like I'm walking a foot off the pavement.

Several Trees Grow in Brooklyn

You know that feeling you get when you've rushed out of your house or office and you're just trying to get to the train and you're stuck inside your head thinking about (and only about) all the things that are annoying you or stressing you, and you feel like there is a dark cloud, rumbling with thunder, just over your head, following your every step? I'll bet you're nodding your head in recognition, because I see it on the faces of my fellow commuters every day. I've found a sure-fire method of interrupting this cyclical and detrimental thought pattern. I look at a tree.

OK, I know it sounds simplistic, but I've been reading about maintaining a sense of awe and bewilderment to broaden your mind and make a closer connection with the universe, and I find no better way to do this than to contemplate the natural world. It's even more impressive when you look at a tree growing in the middle of a sidewalk. Even the bare trees of winter give me pause. Where did it come from? Why did man first remove a tree from this place and then put one back? I like to think about the potential of a bare tree, dormant for now, but harboring the magic of the spring bloom, imagining what it will look like in April and how many different leaves and flowers will appear, seemingly overnight. I mean, that's pretty amazing!

I stop thinking in circles, and allow myself to be awed. Maybe the sun didn't really come out from behind the real clouds, but when that self-imposed thunderhead is blown away, everything looks brighter.

Calming, Separating

Very stressed this week. I quit my job and haven't gotten my conceptual business off the ground. I have been putting off doing the laundry for two weeks. Not a success in business or domesticity. Plus, I developed a strange eczema on my eyelid, which puts a damper on public performances, which is supposed to be the reason I quit my job. Yesterday was a "depressed" day. I tried telling myself not to think thoughts that weaken me, but I wouldn't listen. Despite depression being a relatively sedentary state, internally it panics me. I feel caught in an overwhelming whirlwind of inactive action items.

Today I went to the doctor. The man who normally sits in the lobby had died. There was a sign on the wall. I've been going to that office for a good eight years, and he was always there, although I didn't know his name. His name was Gene. Well, how can you be depressed now, I thought? At least you're not dead. The doctor gave me a prescription and said it would "calm it down." I liked that. I needed something calm. Rite Aid was no help, so I tried a Polish pharmacy I'd never noticed before. They had what I needed and were very friendly. For seven years I have relied on the chain store, even though they never recognized me ("Have you been here before?" Yes! Practically once a month for seven years!). Why do we think that just because it's expanded and homogenized it's good?

A disappointing condo viewing threatened to push me back down, but I remembered I promised Sean I would d the laundry. Accountability. You want to make sure you do something? Ask someone else to hold you to it. While I was there, I ran into my neighbor. I found out he's a minister. No wonder his little family is so pleasant! (His wife and four-year old son came by this morning to return a plate to me and thank me for the brownies I put on it. Jonah had written a note, but was to shy to give it to me. Do I scare children? Anyway, it was sweet.) We talked about making your own hours and the discipline it requires. I realized that I have a lot to offer, but I can't do it all. I have to choose what to focus on. And if I have been putting something on my list over and over and I haven't done it, I think I'd better just do it or take it off.

That's when I separated from depression and rejoined the land of the living. I turned off "True Life: I Have Tourette's Syndrome" on MTV and put Boston's first album on the CD player while I made chicken soup from scratch for my sick hubby. I made a decision not to perform in an audience-vote competition tonight, which would be unnecessarily stressful and unfulfilling and would not advance my actual career. No longer a failure in business or domesticity. And no one had to die. Except Gene. Sorry Gene.

Pigeon Soup

The other day, I was running on the track near my house. It's still pretty cold, and my toe keeps bothering me, but I like running, so I do it a little bit here and there. Since it was below freezing when I went out, I was wearing gloves and a hat, one of those ski caps, very simple. Just round and knit and black, pulled down over my ears. I was also doing something unusual for me; listening to music. I know a lot of people do it, but I'm clumsy enough without taking extra safety risks. However, Sean got me a little iPod shuffle for Christmas, and I'm really intrigued by the music he put on it (The Beatles, Led Zeppellin, Prince, ELO, The Allman Brothers, Stax, The B52s), so I've listened to it running now more than once.

One of the problems with having your hearing compromised when you are pounding the rubber is that you lose a bit of reaction time. You don't hear the bicyclist coming up on your left until you're about to run right into him. Distracted by some wailing guitar or disco rhythm, you forget to look down occasionally and trip on a stick. And you don't see the pigeons.

As I came around the first curve into the short leg of the track, I noticed them flying in, but it was too late to stop or change direction. A flock of a couple dozen gray pigeons was making their standard circle through the park, and they were heading for the edge of the track in front of me, and I was in their immediate path.

I once saw a play called The Batting Cage, about two sisters. The mother was visiting New York from out of town, and she was injured. She had been walking down the street when she saw a bicyclist bearing down upon her. She stopped walking, and there was a collision. It was pointed out to her, that you should never stop in this situation, but keep walking, which would give both the pedestrian and the cyclist the best chance of avoiding each other. I've actually taken this advice to heart as a New Yorker, and it's served me well with bikes. Why not with pigeons?

I kept up my jog, cringed a little and pulled my arms in close, and we collided. Well, not really. Not a single pigeon touched me. Not a wing, not a little claw, not a beak. I could feel their wings beating in the wind as they surrounded me, briefly, before wooshing by in their perfect arc. There wasn't an Alexia-shaped hole in their formation as the came up behind me (I'm fairly certain of that.). But they were able to shift just enough to avoid me and each other in a split-second. It was an incredible feeling, like a oneness with nature. People think I'm joking when I say that we have wildlife; don't dismiss the pigeons so easily. They have a majesty under that plain gray wrapper.

Making the Bed, Making a Change

Whenever I make the bed, I find myself thinking bad things about other people. Detailing what I don't like about a colleague's managerial style, listing the faults of my friends and relatives, thinking about something I heard on the news that rubbed me the wrong way. I don't know if it's the mindless nature of the task that gets my mind wandering, or if I subconsciously resent making the bed that gets me in a negative space, but I had to do something about it.

A few seasons ago, before the television writers' strike, there was a neat little show out called Life, and the main character had gone to prison and served a decade for a crime he didn't commit. During his sentence, he became fascinated with Zen Buddhism and other schools of focused thought. In one crucial episode, we find him standing in what seems to be a grave, digging it deeper, while the man who framed him sits by, tied up. We are led to believe he is digging a grave for this man. In fact, it is revealed that he is practicing an old Zen exercise, wherein you dig a hole, then fill it up. That's it. Dig the hole, fill it up. There is no purpose to digging the hole. You are not digging the hole IN ORDER to fill it up. You just do both things. Dig a hole, fill it up.

I don't know what it's supposed to do. Create calm, focus, mindfullness, mindlessness? What it has meant for me is streamlining, simplifying. That is to say, it cuts out the chatter in my mind. You have a task. Do it. Dig a hole. Fill it up. Even if that task is one that you will have to do over and over again. The bed gets messed up every day. Every day I make it. Why? That's easy. It's not a vital task, but a neat bed provides a more comfortable bedtime, as well as less visual chaos to disrupt the day. In the process of making it, if I can think about the task at hand while doing it, rather than drifting off to HaterLand, it's a nice bit of meditation as well.

Then, I take that phrase with me, throughout the day. There are many things that need to be done, many opportunities to let that negative chatter overwhelm us. But if I can know my task and complete it, that quiet that comes along is soothing and makes everything easier.

Dig a Hole. Fill it Up.