Dried Lemon

I’m not a collector, at least not anymore. I moved into this new apartment in April, and it’s refreshingly empty. Right now, I’m enjoying this minimal life, unencumbered and full of possibilities. There are a few things that survived my purging, I admit. There are a few books I’ve kept like the worn-out hard-cover of, The Moon and Sixpence and a book of quotations from my father’s library. I decided to leave I love Dick and several Murakami books I can easily find at any corner bookstore, though I regret not taking Rimbaud’ s A Season in Hell. It’s funny to think I shipped my rock collection across the Pacific via cargo ship, but everyone is allowed a quirk or two. Artworks of friends and tiny knick-knacks that don’t take up too much room are all living in this new space as well, but even those were subjected to incredible scrutiny. If I really think about the barometer from which I measured these objects’ worth, it is their sentimental value. But really, who knows.

Take this dried up whole lemon. I’ve had it for five months now. I bought it along with other produce from the Mediterranean fruterie a block from my old apartment during an unremarkable day of food shopping. I was still living in Jarry then, in an old walk-up I subletted from a friend of a friend. I’m usually pretty good about using up what I buy, but this lemon got missed. Is it gross to keep this lemon for so long? It’s still yellow-ish. It has kept its shape, an ideal lemony shape with a bit of a nipple at the end. I pick it up sometimes, and it feels hollow; the fruit has hardened considerably, and I imagine there is no more juice inside. It has shrunk a little too, so now it fits perfectly in the palm of my hand.

I keep the lemon perched on top of my few books, and sometimes I accidentally knock it over, and it would roll underneath the bed. The lemon would make a whir-whir sound as it wobbles towards the back wall, and then I’d have to get my Swiffer to push it back out.

Maybe I don’t want to throw away food, and I get a kick out of having this thing petrify into something in-between food and sculpture. Perhaps I like that the lemon hasn’t succumbed to a rotting, and if I were still in the Philippines, nature would have taken a different course. Maybe it’s because I think the lemon is like me, metamorphosing from its’ old life and now. Just waiting for what else it can be.