Monday, July 10, 2006
When Life Gives You Lemons Suck Them Down Till You Find Some Water.
So there I was, sucking on lemons in the middle of a desert, that was on top of a plateau, surrounded by an ocean that was bigger than the solar system. I'm not sure how I landed in the middle of this desert, I don't remember traveling in search for the ends of the earth, but apparently I had been looking hard for it and I had, at last, found it. Unfortunately, the journey to get that removed from everyone and everything was not one that could be celebrated; it wasn't a lifelong dream, it wasn't something I trained for, it wasn't even something that I walked millions of miles to get. I had just been plopped there while I was sleeping and awoke to find myself in my bed, with all of my belongings around me. The frames of my apartment were breaking from the force of landing, and above me the sky was so blindingly hot and bright that not even after hiding under all the blankets I had, could I be shaded from it's scorching need to sun bleach all life and color to a pale shade of what it once was. I was naked to the elements, and I was terrified.
In preparation for something this disastrous, or rather in hopes of one day finding the time to finish a project, I had been collecting stone in a chest in my living room. This, I thought, would be the ideal time to make that suit of rocks that I have always been dreaming of. Impenetrable, Hard, Strong. So I took out my hammer, that bag of cement I'd been keeping in my closet, and without thinking used all the water left in my fridge to mix it with. I got to work, things were coming along beautifully. The stone and cement were cold on my slowly-burning-skin, and I could already start to feel how solid I was going to be when it was all said and done. What I didn't anticipate, however, was the weight of the stone. I always thought that when being a stone...you were a stone, you didn't feel how heavy you were, you just were. Solid, impenetrable, Cold. Like, somehow the suit would sit on top of me, sort of around me, and I could move freely underneath but with the protection of this solid mass. But it was so tiring trying to carry it around, and I began to crumble underneath the weight-y covering.
I was left feeling helpless. I was incapable of being a stone, even under creative and false pretenses; there was no real way I was going to survive this.
The days went on and the loneliness began to envelop me. I would pick through old photo albums looking for memories that were now so faraway, the smiling faces, the places that used to bring so much comfort to me but were now untouchable; but everything made me feel more separated from the world I once knew.
To top it all off, I had completely ignored the fact that I was ravished and dehydrated, and probably needed to address that more than reminiscing over pictures. I went to the fridge, nothing was salvageable. What had not perished from the heat and lack of electricity, was smashed into a million rancid pieces from the fall. Beyond discouraged, I started to cry tears I couldn't afford to lose, I couldn't even believe I had enough water left in me to shed them, but they fell, and fell, and fell.
That's when I heard a thud. It came as quite a shock since the only sound I had heard for days was the slowing of my breath. I looked up in terror, wondering what other awful thing I was going to have to deal with, and there it was....a fucking box of lemons. 'Are you serious', I thought, 'Do I really need to be reminded that life, has indeed, handed me fucking lemons?' I tried to shoot darts with my eyes to kill this cruel, symbolic image of my misfortunes, but I could only shoot tears..and that made me more thirsty. But it was because of the desert around me, and the desert in my mouth, that I looked back up at those lemons and thought it could actually be nourishment. So I mustered up all of my energy to walk over to this vindictive-piece- of-shit-box full of lemons, and took a huge bite out of one..skin and all. The citric acid seeped into the cuts in my lips, and I screamed in pain. But the physical pain somehow comforted the internal pain, and I took another bite, and another. Then I picked up another whole lemon, and began sucking on it for all it was worth. Slowly, my tear stained cheeks began to grin and I felt mildly ok and self-sufficient for the first time in days.
I sucked on these lemons for a week or so, my taste buds shocked and completely pissed at me until they swelled up to prickly canker sores in my mouth. My feeling of hopelessness began to overwhelm me again, I felt like the box of lemons had actually been a trick to see if I could make the right survival decision...and I hadn't. I was only going to die quicker now. And so I waited underneath the sizzling sun, waited for it to completely dry me up, waited for it to take every last bit of hope I had left in me, and do it slowly because that would be oh-so-goddamn-dramatic. But instead, I heard a phone ring. What? A phone? I get signal out here? It hasn't completely run out of batteries?
I answered, it was my mom. She had been worried sick and had heard the news in the papers that I had been dropped in the middle of nowhere. She had been trying to find out where I was, calling astronomers, NASA, geologists, seismologists...anyone that could tell her where the middle of nowhere was and if there had been any extra activity. She finally got word from a grocer off the coast of Madagascar that said he had recently gotten a shipment of lemons from his purveyor that was one case short. The pilot had to let the case go, trying to conserve gas, and he threw it off and thought that he saw it land on an island that he had never seen before...maybe she should try there.
So she got the co-ordinants, called my cell phone company and asked them to adjust a satellite so that there might be a chance of her getting through. And there she was, she was through, I was talking to her! She had called my dad before she got me, and of course, he was highly impatient and had already chartered a boat. He, and some of my closest friends were coming to get me, and had with them 42 cases of water. I was saved! I just had to hold on a little bit longer.
But I was saved.
And I was far from alone.
I literally had a boatload of people coming to my aid, with 42 cases of water. How the hell did I get to be so lucky?
So there I was, sucking on lemons in the middle of a desert, that was on top of a plateau, surrounded by an ocean that was bigger than the solar system. I'm not sure how I landed in the middle of this desert, I don't remember traveling in search for the ends of the earth, but apparently I had been looking hard for it and I had, at last, found it. Unfortunately, the journey to get that removed from everyone and everything was not one that could be celebrated; it wasn't a lifelong dream, it wasn't something I trained for, it wasn't even something that I walked millions of miles to get. I had just been plopped there while I was sleeping and awoke to find myself in my bed, with all of my belongings around me. The frames of my apartment were breaking from the force of landing, and above me the sky was so blindingly hot and bright that not even after hiding under all the blankets I had, could I be shaded from it's scorching need to sun bleach all life and color to a pale shade of what it once was. I was naked to the elements, and I was terrified.
In preparation for something this disastrous, or rather in hopes of one day finding the time to finish a project, I had been collecting stone in a chest in my living room. This, I thought, would be the ideal time to make that suit of rocks that I have always been dreaming of. Impenetrable, Hard, Strong. So I took out my hammer, that bag of cement I'd been keeping in my closet, and without thinking used all the water left in my fridge to mix it with. I got to work, things were coming along beautifully. The stone and cement were cold on my slowly-burning-skin, and I could already start to feel how solid I was going to be when it was all said and done. What I didn't anticipate, however, was the weight of the stone. I always thought that when being a stone...you were a stone, you didn't feel how heavy you were, you just were. Solid, impenetrable, Cold. Like, somehow the suit would sit on top of me, sort of around me, and I could move freely underneath but with the protection of this solid mass. But it was so tiring trying to carry it around, and I began to crumble underneath the weight-y covering.
I was left feeling helpless. I was incapable of being a stone, even under creative and false pretenses; there was no real way I was going to survive this.
The days went on and the loneliness began to envelop me. I would pick through old photo albums looking for memories that were now so faraway, the smiling faces, the places that used to bring so much comfort to me but were now untouchable; but everything made me feel more separated from the world I once knew.
To top it all off, I had completely ignored the fact that I was ravished and dehydrated, and probably needed to address that more than reminiscing over pictures. I went to the fridge, nothing was salvageable. What had not perished from the heat and lack of electricity, was smashed into a million rancid pieces from the fall. Beyond discouraged, I started to cry tears I couldn't afford to lose, I couldn't even believe I had enough water left in me to shed them, but they fell, and fell, and fell.
That's when I heard a thud. It came as quite a shock since the only sound I had heard for days was the slowing of my breath. I looked up in terror, wondering what other awful thing I was going to have to deal with, and there it was....a fucking box of lemons. 'Are you serious', I thought, 'Do I really need to be reminded that life, has indeed, handed me fucking lemons?' I tried to shoot darts with my eyes to kill this cruel, symbolic image of my misfortunes, but I could only shoot tears..and that made me more thirsty. But it was because of the desert around me, and the desert in my mouth, that I looked back up at those lemons and thought it could actually be nourishment. So I mustered up all of my energy to walk over to this vindictive-piece- of-shit-box full of lemons, and took a huge bite out of one..skin and all. The citric acid seeped into the cuts in my lips, and I screamed in pain. But the physical pain somehow comforted the internal pain, and I took another bite, and another. Then I picked up another whole lemon, and began sucking on it for all it was worth. Slowly, my tear stained cheeks began to grin and I felt mildly ok and self-sufficient for the first time in days.
I sucked on these lemons for a week or so, my taste buds shocked and completely pissed at me until they swelled up to prickly canker sores in my mouth. My feeling of hopelessness began to overwhelm me again, I felt like the box of lemons had actually been a trick to see if I could make the right survival decision...and I hadn't. I was only going to die quicker now. And so I waited underneath the sizzling sun, waited for it to completely dry me up, waited for it to take every last bit of hope I had left in me, and do it slowly because that would be oh-so-goddamn-dramatic. But instead, I heard a phone ring. What? A phone? I get signal out here? It hasn't completely run out of batteries?
I answered, it was my mom. She had been worried sick and had heard the news in the papers that I had been dropped in the middle of nowhere. She had been trying to find out where I was, calling astronomers, NASA, geologists, seismologists...anyone that could tell her where the middle of nowhere was and if there had been any extra activity. She finally got word from a grocer off the coast of Madagascar that said he had recently gotten a shipment of lemons from his purveyor that was one case short. The pilot had to let the case go, trying to conserve gas, and he threw it off and thought that he saw it land on an island that he had never seen before...maybe she should try there.
So she got the co-ordinants, called my cell phone company and asked them to adjust a satellite so that there might be a chance of her getting through. And there she was, she was through, I was talking to her! She had called my dad before she got me, and of course, he was highly impatient and had already chartered a boat. He, and some of my closest friends were coming to get me, and had with them 42 cases of water. I was saved! I just had to hold on a little bit longer.
But I was saved.
And I was far from alone.
I literally had a boatload of people coming to my aid, with 42 cases of water. How the hell did I get to be so lucky?
posted by Sarah RabDAU at
1:40 PM
1 Comments:
no, the better question is, How did your friends get so lucky?
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