I’ll be coming to fair and sweet-tempered Loudon County, Virginia next month to teach patchwork, speak of my love of quilts and quiltmaking, and do my best to entertain and inspire.
October 15th, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p. m. Meet n’ Greet + Light Breakfast Books Signing + Trunk Show Lecture: “10 Things I Know About Quilting & Life (I Think)”
Lunch provided.
Workshop: No-Fear Partial Seams! I’ll take you through the darling “Sweetpea Star Block” and you’ll learn partial seaming, which is not hard at all, contrary to popular belief. Partial seams give you such interesting shapes in your patchwork; this block is awesome and you’ll get the hang of partials in a jiff as you make them.
Here’s all that info and more. I have so many friends in VA; I hope to see some of you there!
A mug of tea that will make the world a better place, one sip at a time. Photo: Wikipedia.
First, an update:
There were literally thousands of people* who took the first-ever PaperGirl survey the other day and I have been analyzing the results. “Analyzing the results” means I am scrolling through the responses and looking at the pie charts Google creates from the data, smiling and getting misty-eyed because you’re hilarious, kind, thoughtful people. Several of you, judging by the ink blot question, are super deep. I like deep. (There’s still plenty of time to take the survey. The link in this paragraph will take you there.)
In other news, this morning, I realized that I did not remember to buy half-and-half for my morning tea. This is a problem.
Drinking tea with honey without adding any milky fluid doesn’t work for me. I’ll bet a food scientist could tell me why. She would poke her glasses up on her nose with her index finger and say,”Oh, yes, well, that’s simple. You see, when combined in 170-degree tea, your milk polymers bond with your honey polymers and create what’s known as the ‘Earl Grey Bliss Point’ (EGBP) flavor profile.”
I would slap her on the back and say, “I knew it! Thanks, doc!” And the scientist would look startled and charge me $2,045 for the hour she took to tell me why I like what I like.
It’s happened before that I have been without half-n-half and I have solved this in different ways. I’ll make black coffee, say. Or I’ll pull on some pants and go down to the Peet’s Coffee on the corner and get a latte, which is a real treat and the only thing that cheers me up at times like these. But I looked really bad this morning: mascara under my eyes, crazy hair, and I needed a shower after running around the 90-degree Chicago heat the day before. I couldn’t inflict myself upon the good people of Peet’s Coffee.
Did I have a can of milk in the pantry? Sometimes I have those for cooking various treats. I peered into the shelf. No dice. But what did I spy? What can of milky substance did I spy with my little, squinty, dry-contacted eye?
Sweetened condensed milk.
But that would be ridiculous, I thought. What is this, Over The Rainbow Magic Fairy Dust Land? Nobody puts sweet, thick, delicious, almost-dulce-de-leche sweetened condensed milk in their tea! In the morning! Before they eat breakfast!
Unless they do. Unless they have to. Unless it’s an emergency problem situation.
It was so good. It was like, so good. Earl Grey Creme tea with sweetened condensed milk in it is something I could get used to. This is partly due to the flavor of the stuff, but also because I thought I’d better brew my tea extra dark so that it could handle the sweetness of the goo and the resulting beverage was rocket fuel. Woo! I rode my bike to class in like six seconds.
Sweetened condensed milk in your tea is officially PaperGirl Recommended.
*Please tell me there weren’t a handful of people who took the survey 1,000 times.
I am waging a war with a pen. Actually, I am waging a war with a Citibank ATM vestibule.
The only reason I “like” banking at Citibank is that in the 15 years I have been a customer, Citibank has not been absorbed by a series of other banks like most everyone else’s bank seems to be.
It happens all the time around here: On Tuesday, you’re banking at Bankorama and then Bankorama gets bought out by Blinky Bank; by Wednesday, you’re a Blinky Banker. Then Blinky Bank gets bought out by Ba-Donk-a-Donk Bank and now when people ask you “So where do you keep your life’s savings and petty cash?” you have to say, “At Ba-Donk-a-Donk Bank.” You do not have to say that for long, thankfully, because it’s only a matter of time before Ba-Donk-a-Donk Bank gets…you get the idea.
Citibank has consistency going for them and I appreciate that, but I’ve had plenty of run-ins with statement errors and exorbitant fees. I’ve endured agonizingly slow service and I’ve overdrawn my account a few times. (It just feels better to blame them for that.)
But not until this spring did I question my loyalty. Why did I question my loyalty?
Because the pen in the ATM vestibule of the Michigan and Monroe branch has been dead since May. May!
I told them in May. With a chipper attitude, I let the tellers know that the metal pen on the cord attached to the table in the ATM vestibule was not functioning and that they might want to replace it. Several weeks later, finding myself without a pen and needing to deposit a $1m check (just kidding, it was $40), I told them again. Next time I’m at the bank — after hours this time — and need a pen… Same pen! That pen has no ink! The pen is just a metal nib that scratches paper but does not mark! How hard is it to change out the pen?!
I started leaving notes. In the vestibule one evening, I took an envelope out of the trash and wrote — with a pen I found in my purse, thankgoodness — “Fix this pen!!” and I stabbed the pen through the envelope so it might be seen.
No dice. That pen is still the same pen. So I left another note, which you can see above. I’ll leave one more because it’s really fun and funny to yell at a bank about a pen, but if nothing changes, I shall write a stern letter. I can only do a few things really well in life and baby, writing a stern letter is definitely one of them.
In fact, if you ever need a stern letter, call me. I’llpen one for you.
Staircase at the Courtauld Gallery, London, England. Photo by Mike Peel via Wikipedia.
Today, I had my first class in the graduate Writing department and I am in love.
I’m in love with my professor’s incredible brain and I’m in love with her syllabus. I’m in love with the bike ride to campus (six minutes!) and I’m in love with all my fresh new notebooks. What’s wonderful about this place is that when I say I’m a quilter, everyone wants to know more because everyone here loves art, pattern, color, and making things with one’s own two hands (and feet, if you’re a quilter or a potter, of course.)
I am not in love with the elevator situation, however. I had a rather harrowing experience this morning.
Many classes at The School of the Art Institute (SAIC) take place at 116 S. Michigan Avenue and 112 S. Michigan Avenue. These buildings are across the street from the Art Institute itself and they are both very tall. I don’t know how many floors each one has, but I’m quite certain both have at least 14 because I climbed 14 flights of stairs today. Before 9 a.m. With a cup of coffee in my hand, a tote bag on my right shoulder, and a purse on my left one.
In pumps.
Hey, man, I’m impatient. If I’m at the bus stop for too long and the bus is nowhere in sight, I’ll just start walking. Why stand around and twiddle my thumbs when I can move my tushie and get a change of scenery? Besides, bus stops are grody. This impatience applies to elevators, too: I hate waiting for them. If it seems doable, I’ll take the stairs every time. This “don’t wait” philosophy is hardwired in my general disposition, but it also springs from having experienced long periods of my life when I was so ill and so weak I couldn’t walk. I’ve been in hospitals for months and weeks at a time and it’s certain that I’ll be back in those places again. I genuinely do not take for granted when I feel well enough to take the stairs, so I do. Within reason.
The three (only three!) elevators at the 116 S. Michigan building are tiny and date to the Mesozoic period. Seriously, these are the slowest elevators I’ve ever experienced. I think they go up or down a couple floors and then just need to rest or something, maybe make a phone call before they get back to work. And at 8:50 a.m., there are big crowds of students — mostly undergrads — all waiting for them. One is usually out of order and the other two creak open every 5-6 minutes and let in a trickle of people inside before creaking away again.
What floor was my class on, I wondered? I took a look at my planner. Eighth floor. I sucked in some air. Let’s do it, Fons. Boot n’ rally. And I began to take the stairs.
I had to rest at the fifth floor. While I was doing that, a couple undergrads zipped past me, laughing and talking while they were zipping up stairs because they are small children. (Neither of them were wearing heels.) But when I got to the eighth floor, I realized I had made a terrible error: I was in the wrong building. I was in 116 S. Michigan; I should have been in 112. There’s nothing like being out of breath and sad and panicked because now you’re going to be late to your very first department class during your very first days of graduate school.
What was I to do? Wait there for the elevator and take it all the way down, then walk to the other building and then go up another eight flights of stairs? Even I have my limits. Then I realized something. The two Michigan buildings are connected at the 14th floor! This was a good solution: I could just go up to 14 and then back down to 8 on the other side and maybe still make it right on the money. I looked at the elevators through the stairwell door. I looked up the stairwell at six more flights of stairs. I thought about my life. I thought that if I died in the stairwell someone would find me eventually. I took a deep breath, cursed loudly (it sounded awesome with the echo), and began my ascent. Again.
I was in my seat at 9:02. I was sweaty and gross and happy, actually, because that’s how bad I want this.
That’s my hand-quilted “Larkin” quilt on my lap while I write this blog! Photo: Ebony Love.
I just made my first-ever survey.
Because of this, I have decided that if all else fails, I would like to make surveys for a living. What will I survey? Anything, as long as I have control over what I can ask in the survey. It was so fun to make this I am reconsidering all my life choices.
Do you have a moment to take this survey? There are only 10 questions and I promise it’s fun.
Filed in WikiCommons under “Confusion.” Image: Wikipedia.
Today was a “Guess what happened to me on the train today” day. Citydwellers know what I’m talking about.
I got on the Red Line train around noon and took it north. I had an errand to run: Daniela, a preternaturally talented esthetician finally cleared up my skin last winter and I had to pick up a bottle of her witches’ brew. (If I found out that stuff is made from the tears of baby seals I’m not entirely sure I would stop using it, that’s how effective it is and how grateful I am to this woman.)*
After transferring to the Brown Line, I got off at Montrose. When I was at the stairs to go down to the street, a man stopped me. He was with his family: wife, toddler, and baby, this last in a ginormous stroller. No one in the group spoke English. Zero. I think “Okay” was the one word he got out and “Okay” is a word that exists in 90% of languages on Earth. They might also have been on the mute side because all of them were clearly spooked and sad. They were lost.
The father offered me, astonishment of astonishments: a printout from Google Maps. I smiled and nodded and took a look. They were nowhere near where they needed to be. They’d have to go back south on the Brown, transfer to the Red, then head back north. The mistake had taken them at least 30 minutes and would cost them another 40, depending on train times. As I looked at the sheet of directions, I shook my head in wonder. The numbers, the stops, the directions, the names of the El train lines — I know them backwards and forwards because I speak English and I’ve lived here, more or less, for fifteen years. But to these people? Gibberish. And they’re trying to get someplace. With kids!
I tried to imagine what I would do if I was lost on the train system in Beijing, for example. The mere thought made me shudder.
We figured it out. I did something just short of an interpretive dance for the father, communicating they had to go down the stairs (I literally did a “I’m going down stairs” pantomime) and over to the other platform (I flapped my arms to say, “OVER THERE, WAY OVER THERE”) and then I said, “Red train. Red.” I pointed to my fingernail polish and said, “Red?” The man understood, nodding vigorously.
The coolest thing ever is that picking up my unicorn serum took less than five minutes. By the time I was back at the Montrose station, the family was there on the platform, waiting to go the same way! I was able to go all the way to the transfer point with them and I made sure they got on the right side, on the right train. It felt great, and I think the woman just about cried she was so glad I was there.
World travelers often say, “Getting lost is half the fun!” I have never understood this. You get lost. I’ll help you. Deal?
Image: Illinois Humanities Council and me adding text.
You know how yesterday I talked about having a Big, Fat, Grand Plan for contributing to the world of quilting in a bigger way, if the world will let me? Remember how you all said wonderful, encouraging things and looked amazing while you said them? Whatever you were doing, keep doing it: Yesterday, I got an email from the Illinois Humanities Council congratulating me for being accepted as an Illinois Roads Scholar!
Here’s what the Humanities Council says of this program:
“Our Road Scholars Speakers Bureau invites Illinois authors, artists, and scholars to share their expertise and enthusiasm with people in communities throughout our state. It also enables local nonprofit organizations to present compelling, free-admission cultural programs to their communities at little cost to them.”
How cool is that?? This is a tremendous opportunity because it does exactly what I was talking about yesterday: It gives me an opportunity to answer the question, “What can a quilt do?” for an entirely new audience.
The lengthy application was due in June and I only heard yesterday evening that I got in. Apparently, the competition was extra fierce this year and stuff just takes a long time. I pitched a talk called “Quilts: America’s Greatest Creative Legacy” and now I get to do it! For money! At venues that will be packed (hopefully) with both quilters and non-quilters who will see quilts in a new light. Maybe those people will be inspired to make a quilt of their own; maybe those people will at least find new love for the quilts and quilters in their lives. There is no way under the sun this Roads Scholar Speakers Bureau is anything but a win-win-win-win for all.
Thought I’d share the good news. And for all my friends in Illinois, I think you can request me? I’ll be doing orientation and on-boarding stuff in the coming weeks. I’ll see you on the Road!
Flying geese I made with “Mary Fons Red” and the Small Wonders Germany stripe. Photo: Me.
For those who don’t know, this spring I was accepted into the graduate school of The School of the Art Institute (SAIC) of Chicago. As of today, I am officially pursuing my MFA in Writing. Today was the first day of school.
I am in love. All day, I was reminded why I have chosen to do this thing. My reasons were everywhere I looked.
My career in the quilt world — a career I have been tirelessly building for seven years — is robust and was robust when I submitted my grad school application. Though I’m not doing TV right now, I have gigs with guilds, shops, and groups booked through 2018. My fabric line is selling well (the first line was extended and this fall there will be a new group, “Decades,” which is reproduction prints from 1890-2000.) My column for Quilts, Inc., “The Quilt Scout,” had its one-year anniversary and read widely; I’m curating a scrap quilt exhibition for Spring Market 2017 for QI, too. I’m hand-quilting quilts, designing new ones, I’m on the board of the International Quilt Study Center, and both my classes and lecture are sold out at QuiltCon.
Why am I giving you my dumb resume? Because as good as all that is, it’s not enough. Let me rephrase: It’s not everything. Quilts are more than the industry. They’re more than the latest trend. I love quilts too much to let them be just a career. My schooling is part of my Big Fat Grand Plan to do something bigger.
You see, there are a lot of quilters who teach on the road and do video. There are quilters who have blogs and write books and patterns. These people are my friends. They make crucial, vital work and I love every single one of them. Heck, I am one of them.
But I want to know what else a quilt can do. Who is writing about the American quilt in a way that engages a wider audience? If you can name one, great: There should be more than one. What does a quilt look like when it goes to art school? What non-quilting audiences can it reach? When it’s time to do my thesis, perhaps I’ll write a memoir of my life in quilts (a tell-all memoir, of course.) Maybe I’ll facilitate a citywide quilt-making initiative, teach Chicagoans how to quilt, and write about that. Why not try? Even if I get 6% return rate of participants, that’s 6% more quilts in my city. I’d read a book about that.
The reason I chose SAIC for my graduate work is because they encourage this kind of exploration. I can blend it all at SAIC. (Proof: They have a longarm machine in the textile department and they have a textile department.) Not once in this graduate school plan has my intention been to “leave” anything. It’s the opposite. For the next two years, I’m not stopping anything: I’m going deeper. You can’t keep me from my sewing machine — but instead of continuing in the typical grind of pattern-book-video, I’m thinking big. Real big. For longer.
My first class was this morning: Design For Writers.
Now, I didn’t make a scene, you don’t have to worry about me not making friends, but…I cried. I was so happy to be in that classroom with that award-winning professor talking to other creative weirdos about shape and line and color and words, and my eyes stung. I squinched my sleeve up and put it to my forehead because I knew, I knew.
Illustration of medieval dressing. Source: Wikipedia.
I’m a robe person. I have to be, because my fantasy of The Perfect Morning has a robe in it.
My Perfect Morning begins with my eyelids fluttering open at the early-bird-but-let’s-not-be-ridiculous hour of seven o’clock. I stretch long in my foofy, all-white bed and I pause mid-yawn because — is someone making bacon? It must be [INSERT BACON GENIUS HERE] come to visit me and make me bacon! I decide I’d better get up and comb my hair except it’s already fabulous. Did someone do my hair in the night?? I guess these things happen.
Now with all this extra time, I scratch my ribs and delight in remembering the witty, witty thing I said at the cocktail party the night before and how I was home and asleep by eleven because I always get eight hours — don’t you? Then I swing my long, long legs over the bed and sink my feet into the plush carpet — I bought the kind that vacuums itself — and I whisk! my robe off the hook nearby, except that I call it “my dressing gown” in the fantasy.
Really it’s just a robe — which brings me back to reality. I have a robe problem.
I presently have two. The white, terry monstrosity is fine, if a little scruffy; it went to New York to D.C. and back again, poor thing.) The other robe is the problem: a berry red, heavy twill L.L. Bean number that used to be my mom’s. I saw that woman drink pots of coffee in that robe every day for years and when I appropriated a couple years ago, aside from a little wear on the cuffs, it was in perfect condition. I found it in the guest bedroom at the house in Iowa. I asked my mother, who was wearing a pajamas and a robe at the time, if I could have it, and she said “That’s weird, sure.”
You know how moms are better at laundry? I don’t know what I’ve done wrong, but the red robe has fallen apart in my care. It’s faded. I ripped the sleeve when I was reaching for my tea canister because I didn’t realize I was stepping on the hem. A button on the sash popped off. In general, this once mighty item of loungewear has become droopy and sad. After probably 10 or more years of cumulative use, it’s time to let it go.
But I can’t trash it, yet. It’s such a great red. What should I do with it? Maybe there’s a church nearby who needs a Wise Man costume this year — it is literally the color of a poinsettia. The fabric is far too thick to use in a quilt. I could make a pillow, but I have so many.
I’ll ask Pendennis, but if you think of anything, please let me know. And who was making that bacon, by the way?
I’m so tired from making all the decisions and adjustments you see here now, I’m just plum tuckered out. But I couldn’t wait to show you. See ya tomorrow!
The Tea Service by Claude Monet, 1872. Image: Wikipedia.
If you have a chronic illness and the fallout from it, you know what it’s like to feel lousy.
And it’s a great thing when you have respite from the (not so merry) merry-go-round, sure. But with the blessed absence of symptoms also comes a low-level dread: When will I get sick again?
Maybe you will. Maybe you won’t. But if history is an indicator, you probably will. It’s a real fly in the prescription-strength ointment. You can’t ever really be free, not really.
And so it was that a wispy-but-dark cloud settled over my head in July because Symptom A appeared and stuck around long enough to make me worry. Then (because of worry?) Symptom B appeared. “It’s nothing,” I thought, and instantly began to think of everything I might have eaten or not eaten, done or not done to make this “nothing” happen.
Chronic conditions, especially those of the intestinal variety, are particularly cruel to the psyche. Surely it’s something you’re doing — or doing wrong — that’s making your condition worse. Eat more yogurt. Don’t drink any coffee, ever. Sleep more. Don’t eat eight hours before bedtime. Meditate. You’re not meditating? Well, there’s your problem. It’s as though an intestinal disaster and the management of the leftovers could be beautifully restored if one was more virtuous, sane, well-slept. No pressure, but you’re lazy/lacking willpower/something else or you’d feel better.
Yesterday I spent the entire afternoon into the evening reading books in bed, having tea, and telling my body, “We’re cool. There’s nothing wrong. See how we’re just lounging in bed and reading like there’s nothing wrong?” This is funny, because if I am lounging in bed and reading for hours, something is for sure wrong. I’m almost pathologically productive — until I’m not.
I feel better today, I really do. I think reading and resting helped, and besides, Symptom A has been less present, on the whole, for the last week. I’m sharing about it because I know there are readers out there who also suffer from chronic illness and/or conditions and it feels right to draw open the curtain to the non-emergency, non-total-regression kind of day that is normal for so many of us. I’m not going in for an iron infusion. I don’t think pouchitis is upon me. But I felt like crud, I have been feeling like crud in this particular way, worrying like crazy about it, and I know sometimes that’s true for you, too, but it’s not enough to talk about and worry everyone, right? I know.
Tomorrow is Sunday. If you need to, and you can, even for a little while, read in bed and have tea.
Interior, Imes covered bridge in Madison County (my home county in Iowa.) Photo: Wikipedia.
It’s been fun, talking about a summer crush, talking about grad school starting next week. It’s even been okay to think about summer coming to an end. I bought a nice sweater when sweaters were on clearance; before too long, I’ll get to wear it.
But just three weeks ago — three weeks and one day ago, to be precise, and one ought to be precise about such things, cannot ever be imprecise about them — there occurred one of the worst tragedies of my family life thus far. The terrible thing is not far from my mind, not at any time, however sweet the boys and the sweaters are.
Yesterday afternoon, I was walking home after a lunch appointment, forcing myself to recall The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock. I know the whole poem by heart and have performed it many times, but not recently. I was mentally brushing up, headed south on State Street and furrowing my brow, trying to remember what comes after, “and sawdust restaurants with oyster shells” when I heard:
“Mary!”
My sister, Rebecca Fons, was walking north on the very same street. There has to be a word in some language (Urdu? Norwegian?) which expresses the joy of seeing a beloved family member randomly on the street in a big city. It’s a singular, nothing-compares kind of joy and surprise and comedy.
Finding ourselves not needing to be anyplace right away (thank you, late August), Rebecca and I went into the library and sat at a table. As Gramma Graham would have called it, we “visited” for over an hour. We talked a lot about Megann.
Part of what has been so difficult about our cousin’s untimely death is that I care for her siblings a great deal. When I think of those three people in this world without their fourth, I literally clutch my chest: I think of losing Rebecca or Hannah before we’re old and grey and ready to go and it is impossible to get air properly. Megann’s passing has thrown into relief the truth that surrounds us at all times, the truth we cannot bear to look at for long: we’re all born, and we all die at different times.
I stopped dead in my tracks Monday morning, alarmed at what I had done: Was it was “too soon” to be sweet on Receiving Room Guy? Too soon to feel good (or talk about feeling good) when so recently, life was so low, so pitch black? I realized when I was playing cards the other night that I was having lighthearted fun. Is that wrong? Grief is so strange. Both Rebecca and I were quite emotional in the library yesterday, talking through our emotions — and I assure you there were no thoughts of cards or foolishness then.
It will sound dour as all get out, but it’s true: We’re trapped. Our lives continue until they stop; experiences rise up to meet us over and over, or we rise up to meet them, however that works. I can no more control the death of a loved one than I can control a Cupid’s arrow in my flank. And if it seems disrespectful to talk about death and Cupid in the same sentence, you take that up with life.
Vintage card deck (not the one we used.) Photo: Wikipedia.
If you’re new to this fun summer story, go back to yesterday and get the links for the first chapters. You’ll enjoy this development far more. See you in a minute.
Also: This post is quite long, but I assure you it’s super worth it. I’ve broken it into two sections. If I break it up into any more posts, some of you guys are going to murder me.
Over the weeks, my visits to the receiving room weren’t any more frequent than usual, but I would linger and chat with Mariano for a little longer each time. He’s just a really neat person. He’s from Miami. He’s in college studying sound engineering. He speaks Spanish. He’s a bassist in a metal band — I know, I know. But before you roll your eyes, you should know that he’s a gifted musician with an impressive list of awards and accomplishments and has been playing in bands and orchestras his whole life. Oh, and he lives in the building. That’s how he saw the sign on the receiving room door! Incredible.
So he talks to me about music, I talk to him about writing and quilts. We talk about all kinds of things. Mariano said to me a while back, “Well, I’d love to see your quilts sometime.”
Now, did I take that to mean “Maybe I could drop by and see your quilts sometime”? No, I did not, because I am a Total Nerd. No, I took this to mean, “Why don’t you haul a bunch of quilts down here to the gross receiving room where the lighting is terrible and show them to me where they can get dirty from sitting on the counter, and then haul them back upstairs?”
I had two friends who literally smacked their foreheads when I told them this. I can hear you doing the same thing. I also did the same thing. Later.
And so, a couple weeks ago, I hauled a big stack of quilts downstairs and had a little show-and-tell. Mariano was impressed. A few days later, I came in for a FedEx and he said, “Hey, you showed me your art. I thought I’d show you what I do.” And he gave me a copy of his album. Neat-o.
He went to get my package and I took a deep breath. I thought it would be easier to ask him to get a drink sometime if I wasn’t actually looking at him.
“Hey, do you want to like, get a drink sometime?” I said, doing my best, “I just thought of this just now” voice. “I mean, I really like talking to you and this is like, the worst place to have a conversation.”
He reappeared with my box, smiling. “I’d love that.”
* * *
For my birthday, I decided to buy myself a gift from the School of Life shop. I won’t wax on about how wonderful this organization is because right now, nobody cares. After you’re done here, though, google it; you’ll be glad you did.
Weeks ago, I ordered several sets of their beautiful question cards, including the “Conversation Toolkit” deck. Conversation cards aren’t anything new, but the School of Life is so thoughtful, so smarty-pants, I knew the conversation cards would be amazing. I swear to you, I did not have anyone in mind when I ordered the cards. (Remember: I didn’t pick up the “show me your quilts” thing, so.)
I got a notice that my package, shipped from the UK, was finally going to be delivered. And I had a brilliant idea: Why not ask Mariano if he wanted to do these cards with me! It was perfect! I sent him a text (we had exchanged numbers) and said:
“There’s a package coming from the UK. Let me know when it comes in. I’m going to open it down there with you. I’ve got an idea.”
The package came. Mariano gave me a razor to cut the tape. We opened the box to find these gorgeous boxes of beautiful, thick cards with wonderful questions printed on them. We set a date for Sunday night. I wondered if we should go to a bar for the game, but I felt comfortable asking him to just come up to my unit, like “Melrose Place.”
We had a blast. An absolute blast. What fun it was to learn about someone in this way! Zero small talk, zero fartin’ around. We jumped right to answering questions like, “Do you think other people regard you as a good listener?”
The whole time, though, I’m thinking, “I have to tell him I blogged about him. I have to.” Because at a certain point, not telling Mariano about all this felt dishonest. And then, miraculously, my chance was literally in the cards. I pulled a question:
“What’s the most surprising conversation you’ve ever had?”
Mariano told me about his neighbor back in Miami who shared a birthday with him. He told me about several remarkable conversations he had with this interesting person, what he learned over the years. I paused.
“I bet I can top that,” I said. I swallowed hard. Then, “I need to tell you something. I blogged about you. Several times.”
His eyes got big, but he didn’t make a break for it. I grabbed my iPad and summarized for him the first post. Then I said, “There were a couple other posts. But the most important thing is the open letter. I wrote it to hopefully read to you eventually. So…can I read it to you?”
He nodded. He took a drink of his gin and tonic. And I read the letter.
When I finished, I looked up at him. We were sitting on my couch. He was looking at me, smiling.
“I think you’re really beautiful, too.”
Me. Nerd Girl. Beautiful. Oh, Lord have mercy. I blushed about nine ways from…something. I mumbled, “W-well, that’s just… Wow, I mean, thank you. Um…”
There was an awkward silence. And then I said, just freakin’ going for broke:
“Do we kiss, now?”
“Yeah,” he said, and we were like two magnets, just zap!
Boy, did we smooch. I smooched Receiving Room Guy, you guys!! Can you believe this?? It was amazing! I mean, the whole thing is amazing: This is really a terrific story. Even if it wasn’t happening to me, I’m pretty sure I’d think it was an extraordinary tale.
Now, just hold your horses: We just smooched. For awhile, yeah. But that’s all, because, well, that’s all. (For the record, this would be the first time in the history of this blog I have ventured into smooch detail. No matter what happens next, don’t expect any more details of this nature! Blech!)
Anyhow, there’s what happened, my dear, sweet friends. You heard it here first.
Weird letter from some weird country mailed in 1967. Image: Wikipedia.
Remember when I wrote about the really lovely and sweet guy who starting working my building’s receiving room? I wrote about him several times, in fact.
An extremely interesting one. I mean, even if it wasn’t my life, I would find this development interesting. If you were me and you told me (?) this development, I would maybe have to go get a bucket of popcorn.
And tomorrow, I shall tell you what happened. Why not tonight? Because I have to tell this thing exactly right and writing is hard. The development is just 24 hours old and a girl needs to think for heaven’s sakes. You’ll have to tune in tomorrow to find out just how delicious a story it really is. For now, I’ll tell you three things:
I read him the letter.
While we were sitting on my couch Sunday night.
I have Mariano’s permission to both tell you his name and the story of what happened.
I’m having anxiety. I haven’t been a full-time student since undergrad at the University of Iowa and that was 15 years ago. Sure, there’s been a Spanish class here, a seminar there, but starting August 31st, my autodidacticism* will have to scoot to make room for real-life teachers who will like, grade my papers and stuff. I make a point to process a lot of information from day to day, but so far I have not required myself to write essays that I then grade and hand back…to myself.
“Sophie,” I said to Sophie the other day. “I’m nervous about school.”
My friend looked at me like I told her I was thinking of changing my name to Bazooka Joe.
“Why?”
We were at my place. I was sitting on the floor in a pool of fat quarters, selecting fabric for a new quilt because patchwork kills anxiety on contact. Sophie was at the table, inking illustrations for her book. She’s got a book deal with a big-time publisher and is headed into her second year of our two-year program. (I think I’ve mentioned she hired me at the paper and made me the best birthday cake of my life. We were possibly separated at birth but now we are together so everything is going to be fine from now on.)
“There are so many unknowns,” I said. “It’s overwhelming.”
Sophie put down her paintbrush. “Mary Fons,” she said, and then she said it again, but in italics: “Mary Fons. Stop talkin’ nonsense. You are about to have the time of your life. You are about to begin the most wonderful, happy, exciting, amazing two years in your life. The writing department, the school itself — it’s fun. It’s so fun.”
Of all the words I’ve used to describe my concept of what this whole thing is gonna be like, “fun” hasn’t yet been one of them. “Thrilling,” yes, “exciting,” yes. But I hadn’t thought about fun. Maybe it was that first tuition bill.
“You will fall in love with all the professors,” Sophie said. “They’re amazing. There’s a constant stream of incredible visiting artists and lecturers. And Mary: It’s the Art Institute. You can go sit in the museum anytime you want and write, or draw, or just be. For free. Every day. I’m jealous that you’ve got your entire two years starting and I only have one year left.”
Since Sophie’s pep talk, I have been less anxious. Writing, reading, learning, asking questions, making things, being challenged, and making discoveries — this is indeed my jam. I’ll figure out where my classes are, get some school supplies (school supplies, how I have always loved you!), and I’ll be okay.
I can’t wait to tell you about my classes! They are so cool.
The girl. The movie. The John Cusack. The dog. The poster. Image: Internet.
This morning, for no discernible reason except to make us both happy, I suppose, my friend Kristina texted me a picture of Natty Gann from the 1985 Disney film The Journey of Natty Gann. I nearly choked on my tea. What a memory!
My sisters and I loved that film. She was inspiring and tough and a girl. Natty’s ragamuffin style has influenced our sartorial choices at different times in our respective lives. I’ll wager both my sisters have, as I do, a tweed newsboy cap that is perfect for chilly November days in Chicago and New York and I’m 100% we all have at least one pair of fingerless gloves. From The Journey of Natty Gann, my sisters and I got a good role model, fashion advice, and a deep desire to own a wolf and ride the trains like a bum.
Thinking they would get as much pleasure from this out-of-the-blue picture of Natty as I did, I texted it to both Hannah (older sister) and Rebecca (younger sister.) What transpired was so life-affirming and weird, I thought I’d better share it with a wider audience:
They freestyle rapped about Natty Gann. Both of them. For awhile.
“What do you mean, ‘freestyle rapped about Natty Gann?’ you ask. Well, I’m about to show you.
What follows are actual transcripts of the rhymes my sisters made about Natty Gann this morning, totally off the cuff, via text messages. I just watched it all happen. I have no idea how they were doing this so quickly. The first one to the plate was Rebecca.
“This is a rap about Natty Gann; she’s a cool chick who doesn’t need no man. Looking for her daddy with her new friend Harry; they got some chemistry maybe one day they’ll marry. Her dad’s a logger workin’ in the rain; Natty’ll find him, just gotta hop this train. Her best friend’s Wolf a.k.a., a dog; he’s a bada**, you can’t even see him through fog. Natty’s got style, Natty’s got class; don’t call her girlie, she’ll kick your a**. Natty Gann!”
Within a matter of minutes, Hannah replied with this:
“Natty Gann got a dope newsboy cap; she wears a lotta tweed and takes no crap. The Great Depression was no joke; her dad took off cuz er’yone was broke. Natty walked da Earth to reunite; she and Wolf were mad brave, and it turned out alright!”
There was apparently time for one more, from Rebecca:
“Natty Gann, Natty Gann, sorry ’bout your momma; them’s the breaks in Depression Era drama. Look on the bright side, you can hang with a Cusack; and you just got a bindle, a.k.a. a hobo’s pack. As a kid I remember thinking your dad was real hot; please heat me some beans in your little vagabond pot.”
I love my sisters very, very much. They show me that while I’m weird, there are others like me.
That wooden paddle makes me sad. Also, no caramel core to be seen. KEEP IT. Photo: Wikipedia.
I don’t keep ice cream around.
“How come?”
Because ice cream is delicious and it always looks better than anything else in the kitchen when it’s time to eat something, or when it’s not time to eat anything. If I don’t have a pint of Fancypants Farms Artisanal Organic Honeycomb Cashew Creamy-Time Gelato in my house, I’m less inclined to want it. Besides, that stuff costs eleven dollars!
But the other night, feeling, as my older sister would say, “a type of way,” I went into the 7-Eleven and bought a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Salted Caramel Core ice cream.
Back home, I took off the lid to find a chilled pool of thick, slightly salty, golden-amber-colored caramel, circled by a ring of sweet cream ice cream and — because stopping there would be out of the question — chunks of blondiebrownie studded throughout.
Now, butterscotch is my favorite flavor of cavity. But caramel runs a close second because caramel is the poor man’s butterscotch and I’m used to it. (I guess everyone is poor because I never find butterscotch anything except in doctor’s offices and they never have the good kind.) My point is that the ice cream I had in front of me was 90% perfect in every way.
I put some in my mouth. And I realized that being an adult is very, very hard.
No one is watching you. You’re grown. If you choose to do something that puts you or someone else in danger, e.g., aspirating ice cream, you’re not going to get a spanking (unless you want one) and you’re not going to be sent to your room. You’re not going to get fined for eating a pint of Ben & Jerrys Salted Caramel Core Ice Cream at 9 p.m., or at 9 a.m, or both. It’s totally up to you. Totally. That’s a frightening amount of freedom. Too much?
I ate half of the pint, a spoon in one hand and the pint in another, except sometimes I put the pint down so I could smack my hand on the arm of the couch, grunt with pleasure, and yell, “Good God!!” and then I was back to it. I would’ve kept going but something very, very, (very) far back in my head whispered, “You will regret this… Wait until tomorrow at noon… No, eleven o’clock…”
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not against ice cream, enjoying it, or having it frequently, as long as you’re balancing things. But I am quite sure this particular ice cream has literally been engineered to shoot straight past “delicious” into “cocaine receptor.”
That food was otherworldly in its effect on me. I can’t buy it again unless I’m sharing it. I like my heart and I like my bluejeans. Eating a pint of Salted Caramel Core ice cream on an even semi-regular basis is not good for either, and I am not woman enough to stop eating it once I’ve licked the lid of a pint of the stuff.
It’s a jungle out there, guys — and sometimes, the beasts are caramel.
I have no idea. Image: Claus, sort of, and me, kind of, and a scanner.
I’ve been getting nice mail from attractive and intelligent people who are new PaperGirl readers. May I be the first to welcome you! (There’s no one around here but me, but just the same.)
Today’s post is about how everything I print out of my amazing, obnoxious printer has German philosophy on the back of it. But for this to be entertaining in any way, new reader, I have to tell you about Claus.
If we were at a party and you introduced me and Claus to your eight-year-old niece, you’d say, “Suzie, this is Mary. And this is Claus. Her special friend.”
Claus is a German philosopher. He has many letters after his name and he has written numerous books in both Fancy English and Lofty German. He is tall and says funny things. We spent a wonderful year together going on road trips, learning from each other, aggravating each other, and growing as individuals. I miss him, because Claus moved back to Germany in May and that was hard, but — and let’s go with this explain-to-an-eight-year-old thing:
“Suzie, sometimes two people who care for each other very much can’t be together.”
“Why not?”
“Because the timing’s not right.”
“What’s timing?”
“Let’s see if there’s any Jell-O salad left.”
When Claus moved back to Berlin, he had a lot of papers that he didn’t need/couldn’t take with him: reams of photocopied passages and chapters from various German texts he used in his research. I’m a big believer in using paper twice if possible, so I happily absorbed all that paper into my Paper Cupboard. Now, unless it’s official business (e.g., contracts, stern letters) everything I’ve printed out for the past five months and will print out for the next year will have terrifying German academic writing on the back.
It’s a nice memento, actually.
“Suzie, did you know that Claus sent Mary a big box of birthday presents on her birthday all the way from Germany?”
It’s true. Monday is my favorite day of the week. I was born on a Monday and even though one of the most popular songs in the world the day I took my first breath was “I Don’t Like Mondays” by The Boomtown Rats, I like them. I like Mondays.
Tomorrow is Monday; I plan to grab it and squeeze. My hope is that the good ol’ engine of the standard work week will get my head on straight; I haven’t had this tough a time focusing since I had my last big surgery. I’m behind on everything and though I’m acutely aware right now that none of it really matters, the late fee on my condo assessment did wonders for yanking me out of the pain of the abstract. I simply must get things done tomorrow.
Tonight, as I did laundry and tidied, I decided I’d cook something. Cooking or baking always helps a black mood. Well, unless you burn everything up. If you scorch the cookies or the cake falls, well, that’s bad. You’re going to feel worse, maybe a lot worse. But it’s worth rolling the dice, especially if you feel truly rotten. There’s nowhere to go but up!
I made pralines. Pure sugar and pecans, baby. They’re a bit runny, but it doesn’t matter; I think you get your I Love Pralines Club membership revoked if you turn down a praline because it looks uneven. I’m going to send most of them to my Aunt Leesa; we made them the last time I went to see her and we ate them all in about 24 hours.
PaperGirl “Pralines of Love”
Note: Google the whole “ball stage” candy-making deal before you jump in. And get a candy thermometer. And BE CAREFUL. Okay, and making candy is super, super fun. Yum!
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup half-and-half (or milk and creme fraiche mixed because you didn’t have any cream, drat)
3 T. buttah
2 cups pecan halves (I think I used a little more than this because yum, nuts)
(1) Butter the sides of a heavy 2-quart saucepan. Put the two kinds of sugar and whatever dairy you ended up with into the saucepan. Get a wooden spoon and be ready to stand and stir awhile. Cook the mixture at medium-high heat to boiling, stirring constantly. You want to dissolve the sugars, and this will take 6-8 minutes. BE CAREFUL BECAUSE LIQUID CANDY IS BASICALLY NAPALM. SERIOUSLY, BE CAREFUL BECAUSE I LOVE YOU.
(2) Clip your candy thermometer onto the side of the pan. (Make sure the thermometer isn’t hitting the bottom of the pan but sits a bit above it.) Reduce heat to medium-low; continue boiling at a moderate, steady rate, stirring occasionally, until thermometer registers about 235-degrees F, or “soft-ball stage.” This will take 16-18 minutes. *TIP: It’s better to go a little longer here than to short yourself; I think that’s why mine were runny tonight.
(3) Remove pan from heat. Gently slide the butter into the pan. Don’t stir it. Let it all cool to 150-degrees F. (This should take about 30 minutes and get your pecans ready while you wait and get your parchment paper or wax paper ready, too! It’s almost showtime.) Remove thermometer. Stir in pecans. Beat vigorously (!) 3 minutes or so with your wooden spoon until candy begins to get thick—but try to keep it glossy-looking.
(4) Drop candy by spoonfuls onto parchment or waxed paper. Work quick-like-a-bunny because this stuff becomes spackle as it dries. (If your goo becomes too stiff to drop, stir in a few drops of hot water.) Let them cool awhile. Then eat nine of them. Then put the rest in a tightly-covered container.
Yields: I don’t know. They’re always different sizes and I eat some before I count.
The covered bridge in the Winterset City Park. The memorial today was held in the park. Photo: Wikipedia.
In Winterset, Iowa right now, time is unrecognizable. I’m back in Chicago, but the strange clocks in my hometown are exactly as I left them: not keeping proper time.
While I was home, I’d think it was afternoon and it was well past seven. But time didn’t fly; at other times, the hours felt sluggish and sticky as the heat and every bit as oppressive.
As we walked to the car yesterday to get me to the airport, the sun beat down on me and Mom; there was sweat on my brow the moment we got outside. Mom said it was 108-degrees with the heat index. I had two thoughts: “What is a heat index, anyway?” and I thought how the death of a young person has to be worse in the summer. A cold, hard wind, a forest of sticks; winter fits the grinding bleakness of grief. Sun, cicadas, and flip-flops feel absurd, revolting. Both the young people I have known who died, died in the summertime. Another reason to look forward to cooler weather.
I had to leave before Megann’s memorial today. I know many people were there. There will be another ceremony, I believe, in Olympia, WA, where the girl made much of her adult life, though people from WA and other parts of the U.S. flew or drove many miles this past week, yesterday, and today to pay respects and give love to the family. Times like this, it’s clear to me that people are basically good.
Lastly: What is a silver lining?
I looked it up. It originated with Milton, from a poem in 1634. In it, he detailed “a sable cloud…turning her silver lining in the night.” The Victorians worked that into the colloquialism, “Every grey cloud has a silver lining” which means, essentially, “Even a really crappy situation has good things that happen because of it.”
Megann’s mom, K., told me a lady said “this-or-that was ‘a silver lining in all of this.'” The woman who said that meant well; we all do and who knows what to say right now? But K., gracious and caring to absolutely everyone, even in her agony, said to me, quietly, “There is no silver lining.” It certainly seems that way.
It is also true that in the past 10 days, I have had deep, soul-affirming conversations with special people I haven’t seen in years. I’ve remembered the priceless nature of a sibling relationship. I am continually being reminded that no meeting, no delayed flight (I was delayed four hours in St. Louis and arrived home past midnight), no headache, no spot on the carpet matters very much.
Girl playing in public fountain/installation in Washington, DC, 2015. Photo: Me.
Why do I write?
Over the past year, a year thick with introspection, I have come up with an answer: I write because writing is how I order reality. It’s not quite that “If I don’t write it down, it didn’t happen”; it’s more that if I don’t write it down, I haven’t got a chance of understanding it.
Reminding myself why I write is a good thing to do when I’m moved to share what’s happening right now. Writing down what is happening in my hometown, with my family and my extended family at the time of this death isn’t happening because I am an exhibitionist. I’m not doing it because it’ll make good copy. I write in my journal, this blog, essays, my column, etc., because if I don’t do that, I’m a goner.
You could take drawing away. You could take quilting away. You could takereading away. But if you kept me from trying to order my life through writing, I wouldn’t make it. Honestly, I couldn’t.
So.
There are colloquialisms everywhere. When something bizarre happens that freaks people out, we might say, “It was like a bomb went off!” We might say, when we enter a room where everyone is bummed out, “Woah, woah: Who died??” We say use these expressions – with no ill intent – and then, when the stakes are as high as they ever, ever get, when a literal bomb detonates or when someone actually ceases to be here way, way before they should cease to be here, we know we can never use those phrases again, not because we’re suddenly possessing of manners – we have always had manners – but because we know too much. Bombs and deaths are real and we figure out different words to use, thankful for all the choices available to us.
Megann’s family’s house is a shell. There are people coming in and out; relatives, friends, neighbors. There’s so much food over there, our house, five blocks away, has become the second freezer, the second refrigerator, the second pantry: We’ve got buns, cheese trays, salads, cookies. All of this will be used at the memorial, which is Saturday afternoon at the city park. There’s so much happening at the family’s house, it resembles a beehive but it’s not a beehive. It’s a grief house. It knocks the wind out of you when you walk in. The air stands still.
I saw Megann’s sister, Sarah, who was my best friend for decades and the first person I met on Earth who was my same age (we were only months old at the time), and we spent good hours together. Her radiant daughter, just three-and-a-half, is the only thing that actually makes anyone around here remember what feeling good feels like. I walked Sarah back over and when she got in the door, her little girl jumped for joy and cried, “Mama!!!!” Sarah scooped her up and buried her head in her daughter’s hair, hugging and kissing her. We all beamed for a solid two seconds and this was a great relief. Children are a gift.
I drank Scotch whiskey earlier. Scotch isn’t my thing, usually. But when I was with Sarah’s brother this afternoon, it just seemed like the thing to do, to ask him if he wanted a stiff drink. He accepted, thank God, and we sat on the front porch tonight as the rain poured down on Jefferson Street and we talked about what it means to be from here, and what it means to be at all.
I thought ground zero was last week. It wasn’t. That wasn’t even negative nine.
I’m going to Iowa in the morning for just a couple of days. I’m not Jewish, but sitting shiva seems the only thing to do right now.
I ought to be in bed already, but I went to see the Moth Storyslam on the south side and instead of getting the ride I thought I was getting, I rode a Divvy bike all the way home. It took about 45 minutes and when I got home, I was wired and hungry. Now I am tired and full of ice cream.
So tonight, a poem about what it’s like to ride a bike on the lakefront path in Chicago. Oh, the hours and hours of my life I have spent doing this. There’s nothing like it. (If you’re in love, it’s even better, but tonight I’m living proof that you don’t have to be in love to enjoy it.)
This poem is very old. I still perform it. But it’s probably circa 2006. I don’t split my lines up like this anymore; I had a thing with slashes at the time.
See you in Winterset.
THE BICYCLE POEM
bicycles are universal/but they are made for girls/they fill the space
some rock the basket/some ring the bell/some race/some ditch the Schwinn for the 21 speed/gotta get there mama/playing the fuel/the engine and transmission on metal thoroughbreds wrapped ‘round with rubber/we learned this as kids but these days it’s better/coming up on your left side
I think/therefore/I ride.
and there is another dimension/where it is always July/and I am always 25/pedaling fast on the lakefront path/grass stains on my knees/handfuls of skirt at my waist/ribbons laced between my fingers and kissing potential lit up on my lips
this is how I would come to you/so many nights in summer/you would get me/panting/at your door/but you never saw what came before I rang your bell/that was mine darling/the stillness at high speeds/the breeze that blew through me/waves that licked the shores on my left/trees with leaves like so many fans formed a canopy/tanned skin and bleached bone moved my bicycle toward you/two hearts leapt when I arrived/but I fell in love on the journey/one rotation at a time.
girls/ride to lovers and pick your dimension
the night sky/the skyline/lampposts at attention
give of your mind/your heart and the like
but ladies/when you get there:
I look sorta bug-eyed, don’t I? Well, I am, because I am 2 seconds away from losing it because my sweet Sophie made me The Best Birthday Cake I Ever Had. Why? Oh, no reason. Just that she baked colored cupcakes and then put the colored cupcakes inside the pan before she poured in the white batter so that when she cut the cake, there were big, happy polka dots inside the cake. Some people get Funfetti frosting. I got a Funfetti cake. Some people get “friends.” I get Sophie.
Sophie is a polka dot in human form. She erases evil. She is pure good.
The other friends to thank would be you guys.
I hit “Forward”, psychically-speaking, on every encouragement that came my way starting Wednesday — there was so much. I’m not where all that grace must land first, though, so when I get to Iowa (I’ve booked a flight for Wednesday), I’ll be invisibly heaping all of your love, prayers, and compassion on those who need it more than I do. It will be felt.
I mentioned the other day there’s something I want for my birthday. It’s here, now: in less than an hour, I’ll be 37. I planned on asking for a present. Only you can give it to me, it won’t cost anything and you don’t even have to get up. Sounds easy enough.
But then Megann died and I don’t feel like asking for anything. I don’t want anything.
Unless of course someone can remove the lead weights from the hearts of the people I love who suffer so terribly tonight. How much does that cost? How far must a person travel to do that? I swear, leave the weight with me. I’ll deal with it. Take theirs.
There are diamonds maybe a mile from my front door. Right now, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of diamonds in silk and velvet pouches in the Cartier and the Tiffany shops on Michigan Avenue. Under bulletproof glass, insured for billions, coveted around the world – those jewels are pebbles, worthless, every facet on every stone an insult to a woman who has just lost her child. Take your diamonds and choke the toilet with them. I’ll help you. I’ll help you see what they’re worth tonight.
Yesterday hurt more Wednesday. Today hurts more than yesterday did. I haven’t had the pleasure of grieving for a young person’s death in awhile; I forgot the way it twists and bends back on you, how it ebbs and then breaks all the levees. I keep having these other memories of my cousin and I keep seeing her smile and laugh at Christmas. Stuff I haven’t remembered in years. Oh, god. Oh, honey.
“It’s harder every day because of the permanence,” my sister said.
When someone uses precisely the right word, it clicks in the mind; when Rebecca said “permanence,” an iron door, rusty, old, as high as a castle wall came down in mine. It’s harder every day because of the permanence. I can’t believe I’ll never see her again.
If I don’t tell you about the damned present you’ll think I’m being dramatic. Look, I wanted to make a cute post full of links to various PaperGirl entries that folks seemed to really enjoy and I wanted you to send it to five of your friends. I love you guys much and I figure such lovable people probably know others who would like the blog, too – and I don’t use your reputation lightly and have never asked for referrals before. But I can’t do it. Writing something “cute” would feel like bamboo shoots under my fingernails. And I won’t ask you to recommend your friends meet me like this.
I’m sorry to be cryptic, but the details simply aren’t mine to give, nor would I give them this soon, even if they were. It’s just that someone precious died, and it wasn’t time, and it wasn’t okay, and it won’t ever, ever be. Hearts all over the place are just busted up like you can’t believe because you can’t believe how these things can happen and then they happen and you’ve got busted hearts everywhere.
This post is a request.
Do not delay. Tell the family member, the friend, the lover, the spouse, the pet you love that you love them – today. Make a better choice with a behavior today. We fall short. We are cursed with our own humanity. But all around there are acts of love and kindness and you just have to try to be a part of that. Be a part of that. In the short term or the long, hopefully both.
We cannot lose sight of that. We don’t have that kind of time.
I’ll miss seeing you at the table, sweetheart. I love you.
