Monday 30 April 2018

The Unshared Lemonade



There are a thousand small moments that collect, over time, into the strange cobbled together patchwork that makes up our lives. Layers of jewel toned memories are blended with dull grey regrets, blinding bright flashes of regrettable anger, or the soft black sorrows of neglect.

I am fifty-four. I tell you this not to boast or complain (although, truth be told, I want to kiss my mother almost daily for blessing me with some hidden genetic code which, at twenty-five, had me lamenting the fact that people thought I was still in high school, but now has them often pegging me easily for ten years younger) The reason I tell you this to show how minor incidents, recorded in some moth eaten corner of our minds, can stick with us for years, and inform a major pillar of our personal mission statement as an adult.

The incident I speak of is the dull grey regret of an eleven-year-old girl who was too hesitant to act on the idea of a good deed that sprouted in her mind, and who as a (shudder) middle aged woman, still to this day remembers her inaction and regrets it. 
Forty-three years haven’t changed that feeling. 

I grew up in upstate NY, in a town of about 6,000 people. It was and still is, pretty, leafy and oh, so pedestrian to the kids growing up there. Straddling the mid-point between two much larger cities, it was a nebulous, middle of nowhere nothingness. A place at even aged eleven, I despised and longed to be free of. When I go back now on the odd occasion, the entire place always seems coated in a faint film of grime and decay.

In this town, we lived in an extraordinary, beautiful house. It was easily 2500 square feet, built in the 1850’s and just stunning in it’s beautiful, wood turned open plan doorways, ornate stair case and beautiful hearth. But my favorite place in the entire house was the front porch. Wrapping around the house in a deep L-shape, it faced Rt 14 on one side, and our local doctor’s office on the other.

As a kid, it never occurred to me to be grateful for the beautiful Upstate NY summers. From early May they were sticky with humidity, hot and sometimes so rainy that we were trapped indoors for days. After frying you alive in August, they often dragged out until the end of September, and there were a few occasions where it was still warm enough to trick or treat in our t-shirt sleeves. I live in the Northwest of England now, and although the seasons follow the same calendar as NY, there’s not nearly the extremes here. Very little snow falls, and summers are disappointingly mild, more like a wet, clinging NY springtime.

The combination of a brutal NY August, and my lovely front porch are the launching point for this story.

The North-western English, I am sad to report, don’t drink much lemonade as the Americans know it. Here, if you say the term lemonade, they give you fizzy lemon soda similar to 7-Up. So, at the start of every English summer, if we are lucky to have one, I treat my children to pitchers and pitchers of American style lemonade and remember my eleven-year-old self.

The day in question was panning out to be one of those scorchers that are so hot, that it actually hurts a little to breathe. The sun had already fried any energy from me, and I’d retreated, as I often did, to the shade of the porch with a good book and a pitcher of cool lemonade. Years earlier, my mother had brought home an enormous glider seat. It weighed more than me, the metal was pitted, the dark green paint faded, but the cushions were deep, overstuffed and pillowy. My brother and I would often take turns over school holidays to sleep on the swing, the lullaby of its creaking springs mixing with the traffic out on the highway to send us off to sleep.

Next door to us, two houses had been torn down and a doctor’s office had been erected out of pre-fab units, its parking lot blending behind the building to connect with an old hospital on the opposite side of the block from us. As I said the town was small, and as far as I knew at aged eleven, it was probably the only doctor’s office  there.

Out into this sweltry, sweaty afternoon came a short, elderly negro woman, stooped, swollen feet and ankles shoved into cheap plastic shoes. Loud blouse, baggy, billowy skirts. She stood on the small access porch of the doctor’s office, with a narrow awning to protect her from the sun, waiting for someone to pick her up. There were no chairs or benches. It was easily in the 90’s outside. I was lay in the shade rocking back and forth on the glider. Cold drink in abundance. Comfort on tap.

And I saw her.
She waited.
And waited.
I drank.
I read.
I saw her.

As the minutes dragged, so did she. Her stoop became a little more pronounced. She shuffled back and to on her swollen feet, dancing around her discomfort. And eleven-year-old me saw all this. Forty-three years later, I still wish I had acted on that impulse that came into my mind-the one that said-I bet she is really hot. I bet she would appreciate a cool drink while she waits. I have lemonade. I could bring her a drink. I should bring her a drink.

I can’t claim that my inaction was down to any shyness, to be honest. Everyone who knows me will tell you that there isn’t a shy bone in my body. I was then, and still am, awkwardly loud. Inappropriate. A bit of an attention seeker. I start out with the best of intentions and still default to hog the limelight and conversation, act less than ladylike.

I don’t know why I didn’t step up when the thought came to me. But I let her stand out there for nearly a half an hour, then when her ride arrived, and she was in the cool comfort of an air-conditioned Cadillac, I sat and berated myself for not doing it.

Forty-three years, people.

Standing about fifty yards away, I don’t know if she even noticed me on the porch. But that isn’t the point. I noticed her and did nothing, when it would have been almost effortless for me to ease her discomfort a little bit.

But, as much as I still think on that moment now, I am happy to say that that small incident has helped me to make changes in my behaviour as an adult. I don’t step back when I see a need, I don’t wait for someone else to resolve an issue if I can be of help.

I have become a doer. An annoyance. A bee in your bonnet, because if I can be a doer, then I usually expect that you too can be a doer, and I usually call you out on it. I hang out with other doers, other bees in your bonnet types. And I get great satisfaction when we can help others. I don’t do as much as some people I know, but I do as much as I’m able to, I don’t sit idly looking on.
I share the lemonade.

Be a doer, people. Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way. Definitely do it when it is easy for you to do so. Force yourself to do it when it’s not easy, the stretch will grow and progress you as a decent human in this difficult world.

Share your lemonade.

1 comment:

  1. Joanna it's been a long time since I've spoken to you or read anything of yours and for that I am sad, because this story really touched me. Thank you for sharing it.

    I think every person can relate to this on some level, and I really glad that the fact that this happened as a child resulted in you being the type of person that 'gets' involved as an adult.

    Don't be too hard on your 11 year old self. It sounds like she turned out just fine.

    SBP

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