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.