Life giving lemons

Lively lemons
acrylic on canvas
8 x 8 inches
Barbara Muir © 2009

I love the shape of lemons, they are perfect somehow.
The colour is always joyous, and their curves are
compelling. I was so excited to land in California, my
first time in a long time in a southern climate and
to see lemons growing on trees!

My son taught me to put lemons out in bowls when
I'm looking for a centerpiece and don't have
flowers. (Where did he learn that?) But I've been
using them in conjunction with flowers for a few
years since he taught me to do so. That son arrived
home today from Vietnam, and the day has been a
wild swing of emotions. At the last minute I realized
he hadn't given me the flight, number or airline he
was flying on and he was in the air! Pearson airport
is huge, and I had no idea which of the vast terminal
buildings he'd land at. My friend helped
me think it through rationally this morning, and by
some perhaps intuitive logic I ended up at Terminal
1. Terminal 3, the other possibility is a complex
labyrinth of highways away from Terminal 1. So
this decision mattered.

I waited, and waited and phoned my husband, and
waited, and called my son's cell, and left a message
on my phone, and by some miracle after I'd even
had him paged at the other terminal, he arrived and
called my cell. He was on a totally different airline
than I'd imagined, and coming in from a different
city. But when I saw his face, I was so overcome with
joy that we'd somehow found each other despite
every possibility that we wouldn't.

Trip Two

But that wasn't it!!!! His luggage had been lost. We
just got home (a 45 minute drive) and he called to
learn it had been found, so we jumped back in the car
and drove back, heading into one of the worst storms
I've witnessed in southern Ontario. We just got into
the airport and were told to wait when the storm hit
with a fury. The lights in the huge building flickered,
the sky outside turned green. Then the people at
United said that the luggage had been sent to our house!
I am afraid of lightning. But this was no ordinary
thunder storm. I refused to leave the terminal, and
learned that tornadoes had hit north of the city, the
city of Toronto was under a tornado watch, and police
cars had been ordered off the road. I drove home
when it seemed the storm was calming down, and
gripped the wheel in terror the whole way.

Hey! We are all safe, dinner was excellent. We
laughed with both of our sons, and I did a little
painting of lemons to commemorate the day, and
celebrate having our family together.

Have a loving-life-and-lemons day.