Meyer lemon marmalade

I am very lucky.

..and quite humbled.

It was with a certain breathlessness that I picked up my mail after a two week hiatus from my Chinatown (long story) post office. Thomas had sent me a note asking whether a parcel had arrived. And then I remembered my dream: Meyer lemon marmalade. I lusted after it the minute he posted his pictures of the marmalade he made from his little Meyer lemon tree, in freezing Massachusetts (indoor lemon tree, need I add?). And then I dreamed about it.

At the post office, inside a box, swaddled in a lot of bubble wrap, was a little jar. I opened it at once (it was very well sealed, Thomas!), and sniffed. I made Vince sniff. I think the whole post office sniffed.

At home, it was breakfast on the little white milk rolls. Delicate and clearly yellow, and softly citrus in the way only a Meyer lemon can be.

I couldn't help wondering at it all. There I was in Brooklyn, in bed, eating marmalade made by someone I have never met, from a little tree he has tended lovingly in a climate in which it will not survive. The Internet, blogs, and the kindness of strangers.

It echoed so sweetly Ellen's quince jelly of some weeks ago, and they both go a long way toward convincing me that the world is not bereft of meaning. Meaning comes in small jars of exquisitely set jelly and marmalade, pale pink and pale yellow. It tells of fruit and time, and technique, and desire. And of disinterested friendship, the best of human qualities.

Even the cat was moved.

Thomas, thank you!