lemonade

the seventh day of march last year i found three fat buds on the lemon tree i have nearly killed four times. a week later there were six. they bloomed and hissed out a tiny scent that is the way i want everything to smell. my house. my clothes. my hair. my eyes. the next week each white flower dropped into the dirt. all except one. that one formed a tiny green globe that grew so slowly sometimes i worried time might be stopping for it, starting again abruptly and then sputtering out for long, lazy stretches.

in retrospect, leaving a lemon tree alone in a house where the weekday temperature is 40 degrees probably isn't the best idea i've had. but it lives even now in a sunny room looking south out toward the mountain. and because i see it only on weekends, it is relatively safe from the overwatering and excessive fussing that have been hallmarks of my past lemon tending.

i did nothing in terms of cultivation. folks encouraged fertilizer, offered suggestions on pruning, discussed the merits of root stimulator and explained the varied theories on styles of watering. everything i read and heard contradicted something else i'd read or heard.

so i ignored all that and i watered my tree once a week. i made sure the sun got all over it and figured the weekday coolness would be fine. it was except that the weekend spikes up into the sixties addled the poor thing. two days of frantic growth. five days of a very long nap. this is probably why the tree took more than a year to fully ripen the single lemon drooping from the end of a long branch. i was willing to wait. i have been waiting.

until today. i wake up early today and decide that more than a year has been more than enough time. the sweetie agrees and i take my pruning scissors to the stem. the lemon drops off, heavy in my hand. the overwhelmed branch it had spent the last year on snaps back through the air and stands up nearly straight, breathing easier now, waving a little like there's wind. the skin on the lemon is waxy and thick. i dig a nail into it and that smell explodes out of the waxiness. when i slice into it i am surprised to see insides the color of egg yolk. the rind tastes candied and breaks apart when i squeeze it. there is enough juice for one glass of lemonade. i add sugar and water. i stir and pick out three seeds spinning around the bottom of the glass. it is not fancy but it took a year to get here. i sip it slowly and it is very good.