I am scattering lemon seeds into the new year. While most will be random I want to make a few personal deliveries. To achieve this I am enlisting the help of a man I can always count on. He lives in the moon.
Dear Mr. Moon,
I am in need of a moon slide into 2023 that only you can help me accomplish. I will pack lightly, bringing just small packets of seeds from my lemon tree. The first stop will be in Manhattan to my friend Marilyn’s young granddaughter. During M‘s recent visit, she would go out to the backyard each morning and pick fresh lemons from my tree. After they were used she carefully washed the seeds, and placed them in a small container in my garden window, the same window where you visit me every month. That’s what gave me the idea to ask for your help.
The seeds are for her young and mighty granddaughter, to plant and nurture. From what I know of Minnie, before long, a lemon tree will grow on West 88th Street.
Our next stop will be Rockland County, on the west side of the Hudson River, to bring lemons to my lovely and loved cousin Sheila. You may remember meeting her at the garden window on one of her many visits. She loved “Patty’s California lemons,” and would wrap some in one of her signature colorful scarves to tuck in her suitcase. Back home she would squeeze the juice and freeze it.
I loved the idea of the two us having dinner together, 3,000 miles apart, bonded by shared love and lemons. Sheila is very ill and I want her to have seeds from my lemons. Maybe a miracle will happen. Maybe a tree will grow.
Handwritten notes are tied with yellow ribbons to each of the little seedlet packs so you won’t have to actually stop for the delivery, just dip low at each kitchen window as you do when you visit mine. Lemon seeds delivered from the moon will rest on the window sills.
Whatever seeds are left, I will scatter into the new year.