Life and Philosophical Lemons

I’m gonna get philosophical for a moment. It was bound to happen at some point.

There’s that old adage, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade… 

Well, what if I don’t want or even like lemonade? What if I don’t have a lemonade recipe or like the one I have? What if the lemons are rotten? What if I’m too tired to make lemonade? Should I just add vodka (I’m not a drinker) and say to hell with it all? And what if there are just too many damn lemons to do anything with? 

Life recently threw a bushel and a peck of lemons at me, and I was flooded with all of those rhetorical questions, which just left me kind of stunned and suspended in mid-air. Mostly, it left me completely ambivalent toward lemons AND lemonade. 

After giving myself ample time to feel all the feels, staying silent for several hours with my thoughts and feelings, I ended up back in the kitchen. I can’t say I’m surprised. It’s where I lose myself in my creative passion. It’s where everything and everyone melts away like butter melts over a low, simmering flame. I wasn’t sure how or where to pick up my process, so I just allowed myself to move freely through this familiar space (eyesight still extremely compromised), and let my thought processes flow, albeit somewhat jaggedly at first.

This is the place of my catharsis. This is the place where muscle memory kicks in until contemplative clarity can preside. This is the place where my thoughts and feelings can marinate in my creative juices until they congeal into something more malleable, more formidable to work with and compartmentalize so I can move on. 

In the summer of 2023, my husband and I attended a Seal concert. During the performance, Seal explained how, at one point in his career, he’d stopped everything he was doing in order to contemplate and find his purpose in life. I sat captive in the audience, taking notes on my phone: “Find your purpose.” This was shortly after I’d launched Trixie’s Mountain Kitchen into the universe, and had yet to figure out in which directions it and I would go. 

I believe that, in that moment that Seal was “speaking directly to me,” I found my purpose in Trixie’s Mountain Kitchen and its many facets. Since that revelation, I’ve continued to receive myriad messages from the universe that validate my conviction, and open more doorways to greater opportunities through which it can develop, expand, and flourish. 

I am slowly growing the seed I planted less than two years ago. My community and followers are providing the support and encouragement that fertilize its growth. Newly forged professional connections are beginning to cultivate the work I’m doing to promote greater success. I’m learning more about my capabilities and how to expand upon them with each new growth offshoot. The rain that falls inevitably during the process may, at times, dampen my spirits, but truly serves to strengthen the roots and nourish the soil at the core of what’s becoming my life’s work, my purpose. The gifts along the way…getting published online, being recognized individually, publicly, and socially for my efforts, personally building and launching my website, all of the gracious, positive feedback on my cooking, as well as my writing…those are my rewards, the fruits of my labor: the beautiful blooms that humble me with their sweet fragrance of validation, and strike me with awe in their vibrant hues of appreciation and acceptance of my work. 

I’m reminded of Bruce Springsteen’s New York City Serenade in which he sings “Listen to your junk man; he’s singin’…” What I glean from those metaphorical lyrics is that even those who go about some of the most menial tasks in life, no matter how big their burden or how heavy the cross they bear, no matter how many hard knocks or rotten lemons, can still find enough joy in their existence to sing. Therein is an invaluable lesson to be learned by those of us who will pause long enough to listen and heed its message. 

You will find me singin’ in my kitchen, Trixie’s Mountain Kitchen. My lyrics will flow into the recipes I write, the dishes I create, the musings I post, and the connections I make through the art, heart, and soul of cooking…whether I have my eyesight or not, or anything else, come what may. 

As for the lemons, well, I just need to write a new recipe. I can do that. And I will. With each bushel and every peck.