Dreaming lemons

Where does this begin? Could it be with the turmoil my building-mates and I have been experiencing throughout this past year, coming to a head this month as we prepare to actually go to court together? From the moment we each met, we have bonded together against tyranny, and in recent months our bonds have grown exponentially. I think I have always felt strongly about being a good neighbor. It's that golden fucking rule that I just can't shake. In my first Brooklyn apartment I brought in the mail for my downstairs neighbor with the hacking cough while he traveled, possibly as a spy, I thought (was it The Economist that made me think so?). I was doing it because he asked, because I was glad he knew he could ask, because I wanted to be a good neighbor, but he gave me $100 when he was gone once for over a month. I thought I should return it, but instead I bought a beautiful green silk dress with a drop waist (it was the late '80s) I'd been eyeing in a shop, which I could otherwise never afford. I thought of him and the enormous stack of mail on the second floor landing whenever I put it on. Years later I gave over much of my garage in Santa Cruz to my next-door neighbor so she could sort out her mother's things. But that was only quasi-neighborly, as I began to resent the fact that my garage was never fully my own after that. Still, she believed in being neighborly, too, and she packed my car for me (she was extremely economical with space), leaving the perfect opening for Arlo to lie diagonally from the back seat to the exact spot where he could lean against my arm as we drove 3000 miles across the country. I've certainly depended on neighbors, too -- Arlo's girlfriends, for instance, who lived upstairs from us in our first Northampton apartment, who would take care of him when I went out of town (and who could move into my living room for the AC when they did so). But the neighbors in my current building have become something else. It's the intensity of the situation certainly -- our collective insistence that we must act collectively -- but I'd like to think that we would still do as neighbors do: help each other with our respective dogs, bring in packages and mail, unload cars when one's hands are free, pick up odds and ends for one another when grocery shopping, store each other's stuff in our garages when needs be, have spontaneous dinners together, leave a chocolate rum cake at one's door for Christmas, bring the extra wine.

But this also begins with the winter chill. In spite of my long-held desire to live amidst four distinct seasons, the origin of this is somewhere amidst my longing to be in California these past weeks. I've missed the warmth of my friends, the winter rains, the abundance of citrus. And because of this wintry New England chill, Arlo took a fall on the ice this past Friday. Running after his friend Opie, he hit a frozen patch and landed on his left hind leg, bloodying his lip when he went down. He limped for two days. I couldn't figure out a way to raise his back leg for him while he rested -- would that even help a dog? -- but I did think at least he should lie down as much as possible. Yesterday I thought he was deserving of company in his convalescence, so I curled up next to him on the couch and took a long nap.

As I slept, I dreamed I was in my local co-op buying groceries. It had been completely redesigned in my absence, and I couldn't find the greens I was looking for. As I wandered around, I caught sight of the produce section, and from a distance saw two perfect lemons left. As I looked at those lemons -- with an overwhelming desire for them -- I could imagine their taste and smell. I could imagine opening them up, and I could see a flash of juice bursting forth, my eyes instantly watering. But as I got closer, a man with a child on his shoulders thoughtlessly picked them up and put them in his basket. I was bereft as I imagined my imminent life without those lemons. And I could feel suddenly the distance of 3000 miles between this New England co-op and the California I took for granted spread before me.

I awoke almost immediately. The day before, I had brought up a package from our upstairs neighbor Marta addressed to the rest of us, but "c/o" my next-door neighbor Ted. Wanting something upon waking, I wondered if he'd distributed the contents. Still half-asleep, I opened my door, and there was, indeed, a bag for me with a note. I brought it inside and started to unwrap the gifts in the bag, each in different colored tissue, each revealing the same present: lemons upon lemons!

I don't know what I wanted the lemons for in my dream. But this bunch will become marmalade. I am now thinking of the near future, imagining the thickening mass on the stove and the taste of lemon on toast. 

My date, M. Brillat Savarin

New Year's Eve 2012. New Year's Day 2013. This is my dinner: two clementines, three different kinds of crackers, a few slices of two-year aged white cheddar, and a small wedge of Brillat Savarin; followed by ginger snaps out of the box and somewhere between two and five small squares of medium dark chocolate with almonds and sea salt.

Should I have had this two days in a row? It was meant to be my single-woman celebratory New Year's Eve meal after a day of travel, coast to coast, door to door, with a stop at the grocery store in between. The Whole Foods in Brookline, MA doesn't sell wine, there was no parking at the little Russian liquor store, and I thought I had a bottle of white at home anyway. I did not. But no matter -- the meal was better without.

I alternated between different kinds of crackers, with slices of clementines in between. I had old school Wheat Thins (low-fat, as they give a better crunch), a long multi-grain and very thick cracker but just one, and a few round thin-as-wafers crackers from an exhorbitantly expensive box (where is the cracker aisle at the Brookline Whole Foods anyway? I picked these up in an act of desperation after searching the store twice; they were near the cheese, which I think accounts for the price tag). The round crackers could be mistaken for thin styrofoam -- or possibly Communion wafers -- if you briefly held them in your hand or glanced at them on a plate. But in fact they are quite perfect. They are first of all perfect in their imperfections in shape: not round but almost spoked like tires, with edges that a child could likely work off of in order to create an octagon, or maybe a dodecagon if she or he were very very careful. These crackers don't melt; they have more weight in the mouth than you might first think. I had imagined them as delivery systems for the Brillat Savarin, as I thought they would be delicate, barely perceptible beneath the cheese. And they were, of course, alongside the Wheat Thins and the multigrain one. As I experimented with combinations I found they also met the cheddar well -- the cheese holding almost the same weight as the cracker and having almost the same exact color. The other thicker crackers were also quite nice with the Brillat Savarin, which too surprised me. I had worried it would be overwhelmed by those wheatier crackers, but it held its own. I could taste the cheese as a separate thing as I crunched each cracker -- light as cream with the slight pungency of a brie yet sweet at the same time, growing softer (and creamier) as my meal progressed.

At this moment I am not sure what is better than this very very fancy cheese, named for the physiologist of taste. But eating it alone would surely be a great error in judgement. I don't mean like me-alone, single woman with dog on New Year's Eve, but alone without other tastes alongside it. Yet as someone who is alone, Brillat Savarin seems wholly appropriate. There are no worries about portions, no idle (or serious) chatter to distract from the moment of devouring it. (I did share bits of the rind with Arlo, who sat quietly beside me on the sofa, barely noticing my declaration that I would treat him as a king but rather seeming to expect it along with the cheese, which for once he did not beg for.) Of course the clementines also made sense as a companion -- the light punch, the refreshing bit of juice. And these clementines were quite perfect: I peeled each in one swoop so that I had two tiny empty oranges on my plate at the end. The ease of their rinds meant their texture was also just right -- not a dry slice in sight. But the ginger snaps were a revelation. Ideal as a follow-up to the cheese, the ginger at once cleansed my palette and filled it entirely with flavor. I admit: I started the ginger snaps two-thirds through the dinner so that I could share them with the cheese. The chocolate, though, came at the end, alternating with my last cookies. This particular bar has become my go-to chocolate: the chocolate itself is completely smooth, while the nuts add texture and the salt gives flavor to both.

In my past months of better eating, I ask again if it was the right thing to also begin the new year with this same meal. I determined it was not a symbolic act tonight, as it was last night. Tonight I ate it over again purely because it was delicious, with my experience of last night as a guide more than a crutch. Thus knowing the twists and the turns of this little marvelous meal tonight did not detract from my pleasure. The only difference was more in color. Last night an orange plate which marked the revelations and the brightness of the meal; tonight a deep red plate -- another celebratory color, yet for me also darker with experience. I finished my bar of chocolate (only two squares were left), and, for once, I read the little poem that graced the inside of the package, these lines in the middle:

Love coming is omnipotent indeed,

But not Love going. Let her go.[...]

Stevenson's lines give me hope for the future -- future loves, future tastes.