In false spring, do you have a minute for lemonade?
Our lives can be filled with complications and worries. Kids can help remind us to adjust our default settings.
It’s going to get worse, and I know it.
There will be snow. There will be brutal cold. The conditions that have made this winter bearable, that have made the logistics of getting around with three young kids remarkably easier than expected, will not last forever.
There will be consequences down the road. It shouldn’t be this nice outside in early February in Minnesota. We shouldn’t be able to walk outside without coats and hats. Surely, we will pay for this in the long run if not the short.
In this moment, I’m trying not to think about that. I’m trying not to be that person who insists that we can’t have nice things. The worries of a complicated world are exhausting, particularly if we don’t push back against them.
How can you enjoy Thing X when you know about Thing Y? Because that is the way the world has worked for as long as anyone can remember.
I’m trying to lean into the present. I have a rare gift of time.
It’s not much, maybe 15 minutes, but it feels important. Up until now, it’s been the kind of day during which I’m scrambling just to keep pace — always leaving one thing a little early just so I’m not so late to the next.
But now I’m in my car. It’s about 1:40 p.m., the next place I have to be is about 5 minutes away and I don’t need to arrive until a little after 2. A fresh cup of coffee is in the cupholder, and I’m driving down the river road in Minneapolis.
There’s parking on the side of the road. I pull over, get out and head to a walking path high above the banks of the Mississippi.
Walking along without even a light jacket on, I see competitive rowers in a boat far below on a river that is almost always frozen this time of year. It’s impossibly nice outside, and a lot of people are soaking it in.
I try to remind myself how good it feels.
I try not too look down at my phone or up at the sky, instead looking straight ahead. But I can’t help myself. I light up my screen to check the time: 1:47 p.m. Still some minutes left.
There’s no agenda beyond a little stroll. I sip coffee, amble along and nod to a jogger as if to say, “Hello fellow person on this path. I agree that it is nice out.”
The weather is disorienting. It’s strange, too, not to be hurrying.
I slip and look at my phone. Almost time to go, I think to myself.
I turn around and walk with a little more purpose toward my car. It’s 1:54. I walk a little more and check again. Still 1:54.
I’m preoccupied with time, and this is what I call a “long minute” — when you look at the time and it hasn’t changed. Sometimes during a long minute, I will stare at the clock until it changes, feeling validated when it happens almost immediately.
See, I knew it.
I try to remind myself to stay in the present, which more or less defeats the purpose. Why do I need to try so hard? I look up and take in the afternoon scene one more time.
I miss it. The long minute is over, and the time has changed.
Two strange thoughts pop into my head and I jot them down on my phone.
It might never be this nice on Feb. 6 again.
It will never be 1:54 p.m. on Feb. 6, 2024 again.
Then it’s time to go.
My son takes his coat off immediately after I pick him up from preschool. My instinct is to tell him to put it back on, that he can’t just be in a T-shirt, but you know what?
He’s right.
He has come straight from the playground and smells wonderfully like the outdoors. We walk toward the parking lot, and he spots some stray sand that is piled up in a corner.
He runs and jumps into it, running his hands through it. “I’m at the beach!” he declares.
This time last year we were at the beach in California. This year, I guess we didn’t need to make the trip.
We arrive at home, and as we are getting out of the car I hear a bird call that I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard before. Maybe it’s just one that I’ve never paid attention to?
It calls again, and I ask my son if he heard it.
He listens and smiles. We try to figure out where the sound is coming from, but the call seems both distant and close all at once. The bird sounds happy.
“I wish I could see the bird,” my son says.
Even with the small break in the day, and even with the perfect weather, the day feels long. By the time our two daughters are done with school, I want nothing more than to just sit and rest for a while.
They have other ideas.
For all three of our kids, and for children everywhere, the default setting is different than it is for adults. It is not rest. It is not weariness or worry. It is not complication.
They are not always happy. They are not always sad. But they are almost always ready to make something happen.
I learn quickly that our oldest daughter and some of her friends have an idea: they are going to do a lemonade stand outside our house.
This seems like a lot of work, like very little rest, but this is the wonderful mindset advantage many children have over many adults.
Let’s not overthink this. When life gives you a 55 degree day in February, make lemonade.
Our two younger kids beg to be part of it, and after a complicated negotiation it is settled: They can participate, their older sister and her friends say, but they don’t get to share the money earned. To bridge this financial gap, I agree to pay each of our two younger kids one dollar.
They realize they have everything except cups, which seem fairly important. Their plan is to go ahead with plastic reusable cups and just have people drink the lemonade on site, so instead I offer to stop by the neighborhood convenience store when I walk the dog.
I’m now invested in this plan, but like the girls I haven’t entirely thought it through. I end up carrying a pug in my arms into the store, thankfully finding cups, then dashing back home.
I’m not gone long, but by the time I’m back they have everything set up. Neighbors have joined. A sign has been made. The lemonade is stirred. Dog treats are set out as enticements for those walking by with canine friends.
It feels like the kind of spring day when the sun should be up for a few more hours, but of course it is actually February and there’s less than an hour until sunset.
It’s a good time for foot traffic, and the kids are yelling at any passerby. “Get your lemonade! Free dog treats!”
You can tell which adults just want to go on with their days. You can tell which ones don’t want lemonade. And you can tell which ones are tickled by the whole scene.
They make a few sales. They pet some unfamiliar dogs. We meet a new neighbor. A woman walks by and says sorry, she has to hurry home, but she might be back in 10 minutes for some lemonade.
I tell my son he needs to put on a sweatshirt, that it’s getting late and a little chilly. I put on a coat, too.
Our middle child, the one who is nearly immovable in the morning and at bed time, asks me multiple times how long it’s been since the woman walked by and said she would return in 10 minutes.
First it’s 15, then 20, then more than 25 minutes. I remind her that sometimes people give time estimates that aren’t always literal and I introduce softly the idea that she might not really be coming back — that she just didn’t want to hurt their feelings.
Another 10 minutes pass. The sun has gone down. Almost everyone agrees that it’s time to pack up the stand. We need to eat dinner and get my oldest daughter to gymnastics.
Our younger daughter’s disappointment is palpable. Why didn’t the woman come back?
I carry the cups into the house. When I come back, I’m expecting to grab the big pitcher of lemonade.
Instead, I see our kids talking to the woman. She has, in fact, returned for lemonade.
I’m shocked but elated. I grab the cups again, and the kids pour some lemonade for her. She gives each of them a dollar.
She takes a long drink and smiles.
When she’s done, it’s hard to see the cup as anything but half full.
I resemble this: “Our middle child, the one who is nearly immovable in the morning and at bed time…”