2,020 Lemons…

I was lying in my bathtub feeling barely alive in the spring of 2020. Baths were the only place I could feel, which is ironic, because I am, by nature, a feeler. I hit my own version of rock bottom. I was newly divorced and I suddenly had the time to process my marriage and its unique circumstances. I had a big curve ball thrown at me just weeks before the shut down. It became clear that I was going to be the only parent both physically and financially. It wrecked me, but I knew that hard reality would have existed with or without a pandemic. The pandemic only pulled the band aid off my fresh wound in one swift pull, rather than inch by inch. The timing was symbiotic.

In this bath tub I dreamed of bathing inside lemons. My people have always told me I make good lemonade. So why not now, I thought. Especially now, I knew. In that bathtub I knew I needed to have and to hold 2,020 lemons. TWO THOUSAND AND TWENTY. No more or no less.

In that bathtub I knew I had to follow through with an idea, despite how impractical, expensive or indulgent.  

I became incredibly curious. I wanted to see the face of the produce clerk when I asked if he had 2,020 lemons I could buy. I wanted to see and feel what all those lemons would look like, how much space it would take. I wanted to feel young and alive and spontaneous. I wanted to feel like myself.

And so I bought 2,020 lemons. 

I pre ordered them from Trader Joes. Conventional, non organic, bagged into packs of 6. A week later I packed them into my boldly beeping, damp and desentingraing Ford Escape. I drove away, in a vintage red fur coat, smiling ear to ear. 

It wasn’t until I arrived at the photography studio, with my two daughters, my friend Nicole, and boxes of lemons, that I realized I didn’t really know what I was doing. I actually didn’t have a plan. I just keep thinking something epic would come to me. I kept believing the universe would show up. I did the big thing, surely I would be met half way. But no epic idea came. It wasn’t supposed to. The photographs weren’t actually the point of all this. 

I wanted epic photographs that would take the world by storm, instead I got giddy daughters who thought I was raw, wild magic. I got a few hours with a friend I adore, who humored me and brought her creative inspiration. We played and laughed and groaned as we packed all the lemons back up into my car. I now have a few photos that I want to hang on my wall because they are a symbol of this wild, unexpected year I hope I remember forever. 

The idea itself was epic. I’m just here to tell you about it.

It wasn’t so much about the photographs as it was the process. The reclaiming my life, and saying yes to my ideas. It was about doing something unexpected. It was about making myself smile and changing my perspective. It was about the bottomless joy (and fruit flies) that these lemons brought into our home. From the unpacking to the counting, and the storing them in my bathtub, all of this was what was epic. “I just can’t explain it,” one of my daughters said, “it is so satisfying to walk into our bathroom and see all these lemons.” She stole the words out of my heart. Satisfying indeed.

So why this project? Because I believe in magic, and I believe in the mundane. I believe they might be one in the same. I believe life is too short to not indulge in your curiosity. And I was curious. Because sometimes we just need to be able to say we did it. To say we did that wild idea that came into our head. 

2,020 Lemons grown and picked, juiced, preserved and photographed in 2020. Maybe knowing that and seeing a photograph will do a little something for your soul, because you’ve got a story this year too, and I’m sure you make some damn good lemonade yourself. Or maybe limoncello like my dad and I did. Except it was really him who made it, because let’s be honest, my head and heart have been stretched to their limits. Thanks Papa, for making limoncello from my lemons. The metaphor is not lost on me.

Cheers to making the most! To magic and mundane. To impossible circumstances. To still saying yes. To the year I only just begun.

To the year we are all becoming…