“I want a lemon,” Evelyn declared, seated at the kitchen island with a barely touched bowl of spaghetti in front of her.
My mind flicked back to earlier, slicing an orange for fermenting kefir water. Knowing we didn’t have lemons, I instinctively reached for my phone to add it to our digital shopping list on Google Keep.
But her next words stopped me mid-thought, like chalk wiped clean from a blackboard:
“They’re so cute.”
My brain scrambled, searching for any context where lemons could be considered “cute.” Nothing. Then, like the flick of a mental switch, mom-translation software kicked in.
“You mean…lemmings? The wild little critters we can’t keep as pets?” I asked, confident in my leap of logic.
Her face lit up. “Yes! They were on that cartoon this morning!”
Ah, lemmings. Not lemons. Mystery solved.
If you’re following politics right now, you’re probably bracing yourself through a wild, chaotic ride—especially federal workers. I know clients and friends whose day-to-day lives are being upended, and there aren’t always words for the frustration and uncertainty they’re navigating. I did share one perspective with someone recently: focus on your values when the world seems to lose its way.
On that note, here’s a poem that resonated with me:
Praise the Broken Promise of America
By Alison Luterman
Praise deep mineral veins under rich dirt,
and fossilized remains of dinosaurs turning themselves into gas
for our benefit. Praise the exhausted earth,
miles and miles of subsidized corn
and cattle lowing from their hell-holes
in automated milking barns.
Praise farmworkers rising before dawn,
their sore backs and aching knees. Praise the myths
that drew them here, stories eagerly consumed
when there is nothing to eat but faith.
Praise the courage of the reverend to look
the dragon in the eye and preach mercy;
praise whatever hidden waterways are still pristine.
Praise music that refused to play at the funeral of democracy,
and the killing cold that swept through Washington
when the fake Pope took power.
Praise drag queens and lipstick lesbians, boys who are girls
and girls who are lions, butch women wearing tool belts,
and all the music theater nerds
who are even now building new passageways,
mapping the next underground railroad
and suiting up to be conductors—oh, everybody,
get on board!
This train will chug quietly
across the great plains and over rocky Sierras,
into the desert where people still leave bottles of water
and packets of food for the desperate
who have always been the lifeblood of this nation.
It will stop in obscure hamlets
to pick up fugitives with tears tattooed on their cheeks
and fraying backpacks overspilling with contraband books.
Praise the weirdos because if anyone can save us,
it will be us.
And praise all the glittering illusions
we gawked at, ignoring our own neighbors
in favor of a 24-hour peep show on the internet.
Praise the convict firefighters on the front lines in L.A.,
battling the insurmountable for ten dollars a day.
We gambled our future for a hot air balloon with a hole in it.
Praise our reckless hubris, and the infinite distractions
of the hall of mirrors we find ourselves in now.
And bless our overwhelmed brains,
scurrying like mice for shelter.
Bless our collective rage, and protect
the officers who stood up on January 6th,
now seeing their attackers roaming the streets like rabid dogs.
Ah, bless the animals we have always been,
in our coats and shoes and clumsy language.
Bless our willful ignorance,
so enormous, so world-altering,
that, like the Great Wall of China,
it can be seen from outer space,
where the gods are shaking their heads even now,
in pity and in awe.
See you tomorrow. Love, Jaclynn
Going On 40 