Five years ago, soon after I retired from teaching at San Francisco State University, I walked into the office of this beloved community newspaper and offered my services as a free-lance writer. 

All those years working in the marvelous world of a well-respected university had taught me a great deal. I was ready to share the fruits harvested in that institution with “the outside world.”

I was not quite sure if my offer to write a regular column would be accepted, but I hoped that it would be. I had history with “El Tecolote” and I felt that my by-monthly ruminations could be a good fit for the paper. 

No longer teaching and thus no longer having at least 100 students each semester as “my captive audience,” one question was rather paramount in my head: where would my pearls of wisdom go? In case that it’s not obvious, I am joking. A little.

The truth is that I needed that constant creative communication. The column was an answer.

Lucky for me, I was welcomed with open arms.

All that I asked from the newspaper was regularity for my publications and freedom of choice, meaning that I would propose the content of the column. That amazing privilege was granted.

With the Editor-in-Chief (an impressive title!) we established a simple relationship: I propose a subject, we discuss it a bit, talk about images for it and agree on a mutually acceptable deadline. So far, it has worked quite well. 

Perhaps the most challenging aspect in writing this column is the search for inspiration. 

It is not easy to pick a compelling subject every two weeks. I greatly admire those who can write fluidly, rapidly and intelligently with much more regularity than I do.

These past few days, I was stuck in neutral. Again. Torn between adding my words to the discussion of many urgent issues, such as the Republican-inspired voter suppression, the lethal weight of White Supremacy, the debacle of this country’s immigration policies, the abusive war against Palestine and the distinction between Zionism and Judaism, COVID-19 and its many uncertainties, or the ugly renewal of anti-Asian violence. Among other issues. Where to begin?

Then, another mass murder incident. This time in San José, California. Nine people were murdered by someone who exercised his freedom to bear arms. Perhaps trying to exorcise his fears, as a white European immigrant, that he was being replaced by invading multiethnic hordes?

I was suffering from what some call “An embarrassment of riches.” That is, an overabundance of something. Where to go? The phantom of uncertainty gnawed at my brain!

As it sometimes happens, fate intervened.

Yesterday, as I sat looking at the empty screen on my computer, the doorbell rang. When I answered, on my front steps a young Chinese woman smiled broadly. She was my next door neighbor, holding a large bag of lemons. 

A few months ago, when I peeked from our back window, I saw her and her husband picking a rather large quantity of lemons from their trees.  I smiled broadly and made a thumbs-up gesture. They took it as a hint (maybe it was?) and that day was the first time we got lemons.

We communicate with lots of gestures with these neighbors. Their English is more work-in-progress than mine. Lots of smiles and affirmative gestures, but few long sentences. Their kids, seven and four years of age, manage just fine and sometimes serve as translators.

Carlos Barón, holding his lemons. Photo: Diana Azucena Hernandez Franco

Yesterday, when that woman brought the lemons, we chatted more than usual. I learned that soon her daughter’s birthday was coming. I made a mental note to get her a little gift. It was my turn to ring their doorbell.

A couple of hours later, still fretting about my writing, I heard another knock on my door. When I opened it, it was the Chinese husband standing there. Also smiling, he had two large bags of lemons. “For you!” he said. I was a bit dumbfounded, a little puzzled about this lemony onslaught. I accepted them, of course, smiling back. I also heard myself mumbling a phrase that I had learned many years ago, when I came to this country: “When life gives you lemons…” “Yes!” he interrupted, brightly. “Lemons!” and ran back to his house. 

As I stood there, holding the two large bags of lemons, our Filipino neighbors were getting home. We have been neighbors for a much longer time and, as I saw them witnessing the departure of “Leon” (my Chinese neighbor), I gestured to Jeanette, my Filipino friend. “Come!” I said to her on a low volume, so that Leon would not be offended if I gave away some of the lemons. “Do you like lemons?” Of course they do and soon Jeanette was gratefully picking a large bag of lemons, smiling all the way back to her house.

“When life gives you lemons…make lemonade!” 

Perhaps Leon and his wife do not yet speak the English language fluidly and the meaning of that phrase about lemons and lemonade still escapes them. Nevertheless, there was no mistaking the all-around goodness spread by the simple and yet profoundly neighborly connection that those lemons gifted us all.

On top of that, this column was finally written.