Category Archives: Lemon Moment

Lemon Moment, Personal, Razorback Greenway
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Climb

I didn’t have much time and maybe that’s why the urge to ascend seemed reasonable. I jumped across the gap between the trees. Had I missed, I would have taken a swim. Up I went, for some reason confidently and quickly. Because I was near the trail, I got a good laugh because two bike cops rolled past. Both of them did a long double take, probably to confirm they were in fact looking at a middle-aged man dressed in blue rapidly climbing a tree that didn’t look like it should be climbed. I expected them to turn around and at least ask me questions out of curiosity. They didn’t, so I continued to climb. I didn’t risk the long step over to the adjacent tree, one of those in the pictures. But I did perch up there high enough to feel the amazing breeze. I wonder what these same trees might look like from 10,000 feet. There’s only one way to find out. And that makes me secretly smile too. 

X

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Fayetteville, Lemon Moment, Personal, Razorback Greenway

Egg Adventure Follow-Up

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Egg Surprise Follow-Up

My egg surprise, hidden in Fayetteville, was found on Easter of all days.

I wondered why I hadn’t heard from the person who found it. It turns out the email was hidden in my spam folder in my other email since Easter Day. 🙂

She wrote to me and told me she had walked further along than normal and spotted it there. It sparked her curiosity, and she ventured into the fringe of the woods to retrieve it.

As promised in the note included in the egg, I will leave her another surprise, this one intended just for her.

When I opened the email, I felt pure joy and adventure, knowing that one of my shenanigans had resulted in a great moment for someone I didn’t know. I was touched more than I realized I would be.

Love, X

Lemon Moment, Music, Personal

Before

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Before the storm rolled in, I paused on the landing outside my apartment. Below me, I listened to a downstairs neighbor animatedly talk on his phone. Along the fence, another neighbor walked his adorable little dogs. From another apartment came the melody of a beautiful song I hadn’t heard in a while. I love the moments when the universe isn’t looking at me at all. But it certainly seems as it is. The piano of the song and the melodic voice combined to freeze time for a few seconds. I think I dreamed of the melody because I woke up with it in my head. I repeated my presence on the landing. This time watching the shutter lightning off in the distance and listenimg to the rain dripping from the dilapidated gutters. At 2:00 in the morning, I could still hear neighbors burning the midnight oil. Though there was no melody emanating from any of the apartments, I still heard it in my head and felt it in my bones.
X
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Fayetteville, Humor, Lemon Moment, Personal

Purple Glasses Surprise

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Purple Glasses

I just had an awesome interaction at the inconvenience store. There was a gentleman there talking to the clerk. I’ve seen him before. He turned to me and said he really liked my purple glasses. I just so happened to be wearing my purple-themed dashiki shirt as well. He said his wife would really like the glasses and that color. Without missing a beat, I took them off and offered to give them to him. He initially was very reluctant. But then he said he would love the color himself. So I took them off again and told him that I insisted. The clerk knows me and knew that I wasn’t offering them out of politeness. Because he had told me that he loved the color, I wanted him to have them. He wiped them off and put them on and then mugged for me and the clerk. He asked me, who gives away their glasses like that? He was smiling and laughing. We traded jokes about what his wife might think, especially if she saw them on the nightstand and assumed they were another woman’s glasses. He asked if he could have a picture with me, so I leaned in and smiled as he took our picture. The clerk watched and laughed. We stood there talking for a couple of more minutes. I told him the magnifications and where to get them without spending a fortune. He hadn’t realized that he was wearing the wrong magnification before. He was shocked that he realized that the pair I gave him would allow him to drive with them on as well. When I went to my car, I got my almost neon green ones and put them on. I went back inside so he could see that I did, in fact, have multiple colors. We all laughed again. At his age, it never had occurred to him that he might enjoy such a novelty color of purple glasses. But he certainly got a kick out of the pair I gave him. I might not be telling the story well, but it was a nice way to start my afternoon. Even laughing with strangers and bearing unexpected gifts.
Love, X

PS That’s me earlier in the picture. Since it’s April Fool’s Day, I alternated the Band-Aid on my forehead about every hour to see who might notice. And gave various explanations as to why I needed the Band-Air in the first place. You gotta keep’em guessing.

Gift, Lemon Moment, Personal, Whimsical

Surprises

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I used one of the eggs given to me by a friend on my birthday. And the dollar coin a stranger surprised me with. I helped him and he gave me a little bit of story and magic to pass along. So I am. I carried the coin with me several days, waiting for the right opportunity. But I was too much in my head. I’ll leave this egg and others. Someone’s curiosity will get the best of them and they’ll find the egg and open it. And of course I love imagining what they will think of it. I hope whoever finds it is someone with a little bit of capricious magic. The orange sheet of paper contains a little bit of an explanation that I’ll put it inside the egg with the coin. I’m not sure where I’ll place the egg. That’s part of the fun.

X

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Lemon Moment, Personal

Surprises

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It’s not about the things. Who doesn’t love things, whether they are practical or capricious? A friend who shares my birthday surprised me with a capricious bug catcher. It’s colorful and whimsical. Next to it is a nice rain jacket. I joke that I will wear it while I’m standing in the river so that I don’t get wet. A handmade personalized card. I have one from my sister but in typical me fashion, I set it aside so that I wouldn’t lose it. Now that I wanted to have it in the picture, I can’t for the life of me remember where I put it! I got a set of beautiful mugs for future trips and tree hanging. The Encyclopedia Brown book is from last Christmas. I loved those books when I was young. I much prefer surprising people for both their birthdays and random days than I do receiving gifts. But that in no way lessens how much I appreciate the tangible and touchable just as much as I appreciate the words and the exchanged humor that accompanies such landmark days. I know what y’all are thinking. The bug catcher is too small to catch my manager, so he is safe.
Love, X
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Lemon Moment, Personal

3:33

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Though it was almost 50°, the wind howled in the predawn morning. I stood motionless in the woods, back pressed against a tree. Waiting for deer. None came. But quiet thoughts did. The moon above me was rendered glossy by the clouds racing overhead. The world was dark but the wind buffeted everything. 3:33 a.m. is a distinct world.
X
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Airbnb, Lemon Moment, Personal

Me

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I went out into the woods early here in the hollers of Bella Vista. Though I was watchful, I didn’t see the deer until they ran and crashed away. The thick mass of leaves made surreptitious approach impossible. I saw one large buck. I was 15 feet from them. As I stood hanging another cup in the trees, I could hear a buck snorting. Above, hawks were already swooping and prowling the early overcast morning. Carolina chickadees, a solitary woodpecker, robins, fish crows, and other birds around me sang and pecked, ignoring the cold. It was both a lemon moments and stolen one.

Just me in the trees, surrounded.

It was a beautiful moment. I thought of one of my favorite quotes, “You can’t take a picture of this, it’s already gone.”
I felt a pang of aloneness, just as I had yesterday when I went down and snapped a picture of last visit’s cup.

I whispered, “Tomorrow.” There isn’t one. Only now.

Love, X
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Lemon Moment, Personal

A Better Someone

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He didn’t ask for anything.

I said, “I apologize for any awkwardness. Would you like this?” It doesn’t matter what it was. You can use your imagination. 

He looked at me and smiled. “Thank you!”

We talked for a couple of minutes. As I walked away, he asked me to hold on a second. 

He fished something out of his pocket and held it out. I took it from him. It was a dollar coin, shiny and new.

“I’m not going to say I’m not going to take it because you want me to have it. What’s the story? I know there is one.” I asked him.

He hesitated. 

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. But I love good stories.”

He said, “I always carry three of these new coins. One for the past, one for the future, and one for the now. Even though they’re the same, I like to imagine I’m giving away the coin that is the past. Sometimes I have to spend them.” 

“Damn,” I said, surprised. “That is interesting.” And I meant it.

“If someone needs it, give it to them.” I was walking away when he said that. It made me temporarily mute, so I just nodded. 

PS Earlier in the morning, I had a similar moment with another man. Though he did not have much, he always took the time to take the little extra he had and walk it to one of the small parking lot food pantries in Fayetteville. If I were looking for the definition of a kind, charitable heart, it would be him.

The brooch is one I wore today. I loved telling people, “It’s a brooch to celebrate my new promotion to Dance Commander.” The responses varied, but all made the day a little more interesting.

Love, X

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Lemon Moment, Opinion, Personal

Scroll

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Subtle things I’ve learned…

“Age is just a number, X.”

“You are right. But so is 100. You earned each of your years by the minute, the day, the month, the year. You can walk a hundred extra steps. You can eat 100 less calories. And you can do 100 push-ups. You don’t have to do it all at once. Make or take a minute for small choices. You can choose a smile instead of a complaint. You can give a hug to remember what humanity is all about. Age is just a number. And it relentlessly piles up behind you, an infinite number of increments. Just like you’re choosing to read this instead of scrolling past. Don’t scroll your life or it will be gone forever.”

X

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