Love of Lemons

Lemons…they add a brightness to most any dish and enhance the flavors of the accompanying foods to their highest, greatest good. Lemons uplift, simply by their top notes of being inherently refreshingly 'themselves'. For this reason and more…I love lemons. Lemons to me stretch beyond the dimensions, of the seasoned palate of my cook’s knowing, as they stir deep into the crevices of my memory wells lodged in my heart’s treasured chamber. When filled with the aroma of a lemon, my mind effortlessly sparks a switch straight to my 14 year old self and I am filled with …

freedom, courage, confidence and independence.

The summer I was 14, my best friend, Serena and I rode our bikes everywhere…for us this first taste of liberation was like new air to breathe and we inhaled deeply and furiously!

Our favorite outing was going to the Oakland Pharmacy to buy shampoo (how very innocent). The product we became constant consumers of was: Lemon Up shampoo. Imagine a bright yellow bottle and a lemon shaped plastic top - slightly bigger than life-sized - perfectly ripened. It opened at the middle point and adorned the tall vessel like a ‘crowning’ finial. The packaging was super clever, the shampoo average but it was the scent that made this purchase worthy to possess. Lemon Up shampoo was an undeniably citrus forward fragrance from the most bountiful lemon orchard (and perfectly combined with the innocents and freedom of being 14-year-old girl)! Once clicking the top open, the Lemon Up zested the atmosphere with the doorway leading straight to my well captured youth.

Serena and I each saved our babysitting money for this special drugstore outing. Together, we navigated the hilly slope that plummeted into our town’s main street, then feed against the steady traffic that flowed like a shoreline’s wave, in and out. I remember our downhill ride being fast and freeing as we rode with wings transcending our banana seats into flight that elevated our spirits to a much older version of self. I loved the accomplishment of taking the money that I earned, being in command of my transportation to an important store (it kind of was by Oakland’s standards) and holding responsiblity to the exchange of bills/change that solidified my shampoo purchase complete. The two miles (it somehow felt more expansive in length than a mere two miles) we trekked home, necessitated us to pedal harder as we fought against the sharpness of slope to make it back up the winding hill of Franklin Lakes Road (think on scale to the Grinch’s path back up from Whoville to his quarters in Mt. Crumpet). We couldn't have been more proud and more excited as we added our grown-up purchases to our bike's load. As soon as we forged into my house…we’d snap our plastic lemon tops open and release our autonomy of assuredness and maturity right in front of our very noses.

It is in this pocket, that lemons did what they do best, they highlighted, brightened and opened up the passageways ushering forth a new teen to a catapulted in growth and in the process feeling elation. I loved being 14 and the tangibly embodiment of being carefree.

Thirty-six years later, my husband gifted me one of my most treasured presents…it was a ‘vintage’ bottle of Lemon Up shampoo circa 1981. I didn’t consciously know I could be transported through time and space by the context of an aroma filling this unique vessel that I had come to revere by eyesight alone.

In this moment…I remember reconnecting inward, welcoming the returns of a long-departed companion… my own trusted and worry-free skin.

I hadn’t thought much about this hair shampoo and I certainly never took into account what this whimsical bottle meant to me at 14 until this rekindling of my youth came back to my hands in this familiar bright package and smelling just as magical!

It is now almost three years later and this same Lemon Up shampoo bottle sits high on the shelf of my shower amongst the shrine of a milieu of hair treatment potions. Lemon Up holds the throne above all like a Queen governing her lower court. Everyone in my family knows NOT to touch this eye-popping, brilliantly hued bottle… let alone use it. But, for me, I hold it often, flip the oversized, oblong shaped top and seize the essence of fourteen-year-old me - feeling free, feeling playful, feeling uninhabited - all in one gasp. On a rare occasion, perhaps once a season when I need to rekindle my confident connection to who I am and what I covet, I modestly portion out a few golden drops and indulge in a hair washing that cleanses well past my locks, deep into my core filling up the trunk of my centeredness. Anchoring into this time is sort of a spiritual experience and one that springs forth rejuvenation from mere suds alone! I’m instantly renewed, recharged and reminded of the inner me. In this moment, I let go of the residue, the invisible film that blocks and shields my supreme declaration that liberates my youth of the past and seeds the evolved me of today.

I hope you ponder…in a time of stillness, calm and quiet…the aromas that evoke YOU that conjures a place, a moment, a year, a decade, a stirring that illuminates your ground as much as your ceiling. What scents, what tastes, what images or what songs/sounds align an outer body connection to an inner body one and the lines between the two have blurred to one clear and Divine formidable you. A YOU that fashions feeling alive and has awakened to your truest, most beautifully nourished, lemony-self of today!