Dear Sober Jessica

I remember being very high when you told me to write something down exactly as you dictated. You began, “Dear Sober Jessica” and in the middle of the greatest love note ever written, you told me to tell myself who I really am. I cry when I think of that now.

tears
clear as creek water
falling over sharp edges

Winter holds for one last hurrah as dawn extends a taper's light into the remnants of yesterday's storm. The fifty car pile up on I-96 has been cleared just in time for everyone to make it to church. In the coziness of early morning writing I remember I suggested brunch as a consolation for all the other plans that fell apart this weekend. Now there is a time limit and a boundary. Lately Kora expresses impatience at meal time, when asking to be let in or out of the house, or when asking for attention or a jaunt around the block. Her energy this particular morning adds to the palpable pulse of stillness meeting billowing aims of the day. The crows suggest I have missed my window and they might be right.

New cookbooks for new ailments of the body. My mother cooked every meal but aside from Betty Crocker's red, gingham cooking bible, she never owned published recipes. Instead she had a binder or notebook of sorts with handwritten recipes from neighbors and memories. Three by five inch note cards in various handwriting styles, smudged with flour or spotted with oil, would be taped to a sheet of paper or shoved into pocketed sleeves. I remember she tried to teach me to cook and sew, but something in me refused the very notion of spending my time doing either of these traditionally feminine pursuits. I never learned to sew more than an occasional stray button, but cooking has become one of the main ways my family feels loved by me – or so goes the little tune I sing to myself while planning meals for the week.

I hear Kyle coughing in the basement and realize my time in hermitage for the day is finished. The snow will melt soon and the outside work will appear with a ravenous look in her eyes. The love letters are gone but I will never forget who cared enough to write.