I have had writer’s block. My sister and my niece are fighting I have tried to help them
make peace at the expense of my muse. I have been so saddened by the ugliness in
this dispute, that I have been afraid to write; that it will all come out and you will all know
that my sister and her daughters are a mess; I hate it and can’t change it.
So I have been making marmalade. It is hard to do. Marmalade is the bitter and the
sweet. The sour lemons require a tremendous amount of sugar to become edible.
They also require time. Time to soften and time to marinate. It is the firming of the
lemon marmalade that is troubling, lemons congeal too fast. When I try to make the
marmalade from the sweeter tangerines, they don’t like to firm up at all. I have to add
the lemons to make the consistency right.
This is my metaphor. I have to use the sour rind and pith of the lemons to preserve the
sweet tender tangerines. I have to use the sour experience of my sister and her terrible
relations with her daughter and ex husband, to understand that I have sweet tender
relationships with my daughter and husband that I must preserve.
Marmalade is a two day process. The first day you must prepare the fruit by scrapping
out the insides of the lemons or oranges and boil the rinds. Then you boil the rinds,
water, and sugar until melted. After this the whole mixture must sit overnight in a cool
place to marinate.The next day you take the whole concoction and boil it on high until
it reaches 223 F. There is one other little part that is messy and very important. All the
trimmings and scrapings of the first day, are put into a muslin bag or two and sealed up
and boiled with the fruit until soft. When the contents of this bag are soft and very warm,
you must squeeze the bags until gooey white mush comes out through the muslin into
a bowl. This is the pectin, it is the gold. Do not waste a single drop, you will need all
of it. The pectin process is messy and makes my hands ache, but it is the essential
ingredient, the magical compound that makes juice and fruit into jam.
All the trimmings of our children’s adolescence, the hard lessons learned, the
broken hearts, the lost races, the blemishes, the difficult subjects, the angry words,
misunderstandings and misplaced treasures; are the things we put in the bag. All
these experiences bounce around together, losing their edges and their sting. We hold
them in the bag and let them cook. Then we take them and squeeze out the magical
compound that is our shared experience, the glue that holds us together. This glue
is what makes a family. It is not always easy, but the bag full of unwanted trimmings
is more valuable than gold. It is this glue that congeals the sweeter moments of our
shared experiences.

Lemons are impossible to eat without sugar, but they are full of pectin, full of glue.
Tangerines are delicious without sugar but lack the pectin. I wanted so badly to use only
the tender, thin skinned tangerines in my marmalade. I wanted the clear amber jelly with
floating orange crescents in suspension. I could not make the marmalade work with only
tangerines. I would have to cook the mixture so long that all I had left were the pieces
of rind, all the liquid having boiled away. I had used the bag full of tangerine trimmings,
but it was the sour, pithy lemon trimmings that were lacking. I finally stuffed a bag full of
these lemon trimmings, boiled them until they were soft; squeezed out the white mushy
pectin and added it to my tangerine mix. Like magic the mixture pulled together and the
lovely orange half moons rested in a clear stream of amber tangerine jelly. I needed the
lemons to pull it all together.
I want to hold my sister and tell her to take a deep breath, open the bag and save all
the sour, pithy trimmings of hard feelings and harsh words. Hold the trimmings until
they have softened and then squeeze out the essence and use the mushy remains to
glue her family back together. I want to tell her to not take it all so personally, to let her
daughter spread her wings and fly. It is hard to tell someone what to do and have them
listen. Ultimately, what do I really know? I am in the dark as much as she is; bumbling
my way through this life. I only know that my daughter and my husband are my priority
and that as long as I know this to be true we will always come back together stronger.
One hen asked to the other, do you know why there is an orange in the hen house?
And the other hen said “That’s the orange my mamma laid.