I was
at a church picnic last summer where everybody chipped in to put it on. The
conversation was comforting, burgers were juicy, the salads were savory, and
the lemonade tasted like hose water—like really old hose water, actually. The
kind of hose water that has been sitting inside an old rubber tube all day
long, in the blazing sun.
The
woman who had made the lemonade was a dear friend, so we all sipped politely
and tried to not to think about the drink's nastiness. We would have continued
this way all evening if it weren't for Sister Harvey, who was far too old to
bother with tact. She turned to the lemonade maker, placed a kind hand on her
shoulder, and suggested, "Sweet thing,” (she calls everybody “sweet thing,”
because she’s also too old to remember new-fangled names) “You've got to let
that hose run for a while before you make your lemonade! Just let it run on
out!" All of us had a good laugh. We poured out the nasty lemonade and
started over again.
It
occurred to me that life is sometimes like that hose water—sometimes it just
takes some patience before it gets good enough to swallow.
Moving
to a new country can be that way, especially when you don't have your network
of friends and family near. It’s not until then that we realize how much we count
on them to remind us of why we're lovable or interesting or funny or
responsible or whatever it is that makes us feel good. With time, though, those
kinds of relationships form again in new ways with new people. And life is
sweet again.
