There wasn’t a goodbye
It was a New Year’s flight
A forgotten black velvet hat
A glowing golden ball of light
Channeled on the plane’s wing
Not imagined, real as anything
Opened the door of my new home
Found a dozen roses waiting full of thorns
Reminding me not to go back
My hands were cold.
We were sitting outside at a table, sharing stories of our
exes, just friends spending time together, this wasn’t to be considered a date.
You took my hands into yours and blew warm air onto them.
I remember drinking delicious beer that tasted like banana
bread.
We were having a supremely excellent time, being innocent, talking.
Hepcat's "Dance Wid' Me" was being covered by a live band.
All of these things culminating in a swirl of serendipity.
At that moment, in my chest, my heart took the shape of a ship passing yours in the night.
Knowing if I didn't say anything, this moment would continue sailing, turning into treasure lost at sea.
I couldn’t leave our time together, it didn't matter that someone was dating you.
Blurting was the best I could do.
“I have a secret crush on you!” a primal, guttural, hindsight, embarrassing thing.
Just standing in the street with my car door open, hanging in that awkward limbo, not ready to
head home.
You had just finished walking me there, I still wasn’t ready
to go.
“I have a secret crush on you too.”
Relief washed over me when you echoed it back, in the dark, in
the quiet of the night that was turning into day.
That moment was the beginning of everything.
A smile locked
on my face, our future full of possibility.
It persisted as I passed the threshold of my front door, as
I laid down for a moment, after finally getting home.
We crossed out the word friends, replacing it
with lovers, our lives changing forever.
She was five years old and precocious as they come.
Freckles, green eyes, walnut brown hair that had hints of
red in the sun.
She blew the best bubbles, bigger than her plump cheeks. Bright, enormous pink ones that made her laugh when they burst against her tongue.
Her imagination was paired with curiosity, she had an old soul
that would never stop investigating.
Being her mother was challenging.
Still, her mother had a few tricks up her sleeve, and she
wasn’t going to let this daughter of hers win the year of five without giving
her a run for her money.
It was fall, the apples were ready for harvesting. Her mother went to the store and bought
bundles of a thick blue string and prepared nearly every apple within her reach.
She created a magical setting that looked beautiful, full of round, red orbs hanging like ornaments in a Christmas tree.
The next morning her five-year-old ran out into the
cold. She was going to climb the tree
and pluck all the apples that the fairies brought her. That's the story she'd been telling everyone, she even wrote it down, detailed with illustrations made by her tiny hands.
“Come and see! Come and see!” Her impatient voice was racing, giving away that something
miraculous was happening.
Her mother grabbed a basket, ready to bring in their picking. She prepared her face for the surprise her little girl was about to spring.
You could see the child midway up the tree, hanging herself
out on the branches, she couldn’t manage words through all her giggling.
“Mommy look! The apples are on strings! I told you there
were fairies around our tree!”
Her mother grabbed the apples, string by string, placing them
in the basket, while her daughter climbed down to sit on the autumn grass next
to it.
“I told you!”
“Yes, you did my dear darling girl. Who knew fairy apples grew on strings?”
“I did. I know
everything. It's exactly like the pictures in my book!" The little girl held the apples by their strings, laying on the ground with them above her head, dangling.
"Off the cold ground now young lady." The mother laughed as she helped her daughter up, placing the apples back in the basket.
They walked back into the house, peeled
the apples, cooked them down, and made a cobbler fragrant with clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar of the deepest brown.
“Those fairies made delicious apples.” The little girl said,
filling her stomach with the warm magical apples hung in the tree with blue thread.
“Yes, they most certainly did.” The little girl's mother was quietly pleased, keeping her secret of blue strings and apple trees.
She kept it in her book of mother’s magic, filled with spells that grew her child's imagination while going to great lengths to inspire her insatiable curiosity.
It wasn't until many years later, still blowing pink bubbles, and knowing everything that this curious child was told the secret of her mother's spell.
She cherishes that memory and raised her children similarly. Casting her own mother's magic, the kind that happens from generations of imagination being handed down.
The smell of breakfast in the morning, it’s different than what you imagine it smells like.
In a perfect world, it’s thick-cut applewood smoked bacon,
two eggs bubbled away in a pat of butter, and a toasted English muffin.
Coffee, but the kind that’s from a percolator, that smell of
gas stove boiling the kettle while it bubbles to the top, letting you know it’s
ready to be ripped from the kiss of its flame.
The smell of steam and hot water mixed with Ivory soap, soaked
from a 6 a.m. shower.
Squeaky clean hair bundled in a towel right out of the
dryer. The kind that’s been thrown in and
popped out to be kept warm so you can wrap yourself in cozy before your
breakfast.
With the smell of clean plates from the cabinet, your eyes aren’t
blurry any more from hitting snooze too many times.
Sitting down at the table and adding just a touch of
salt and scattering of pepper. All of
these smells come together during breakfast getting your morning underway.
That’s the imagined perfect breakfast.
That is not how real smells of the morning play out.
It’s a crusty eyed hustle, ignoring the many screams and shouts of the alarm, squeezing in one final micro dream, something this time worth journaling.
The smell of the pillow reminding you that you have to get
out of bed, there’s a deep morning breath yawn with a stretch telling you there’s
no time for breakfast.
It’s the smell of soap splashing against the face, of saline
that drips a tiny salt spot onto your cheek, putting in contacts while
blinking.
The smell of coffee is true enough, that’s the wrap of the
morning, glug, glug, glug.
Pull-on some comfortable pants that smell like fresh laundry, not breakfast you’re thinking maybe there’s time for a toasted bagel.
Pull a
shirt on that passes the sniff test, spray some wrinkle remover on it. This doesn’t remotely smell like breakfast,
but at least you’ll look respectable for that last second remote meeting.
Mint fills your mouth and sink as the toothbrush grinds
with activity. Take a moment to put a brush through your hair that smells like
green tea shampoo, a reminder of the shower you took last night to help put yourself to
sleep.
Cup your hand around your underarms to make sure they’re
pleasant, never wanting to sit in your own smell, there’s no body oil, winning
at staying fragrant.
Breakfast smells like an apple today, the crisp flesh being
bitten by cleaned teeth pulls it away.
More coffee, more cream, the smell of vitamins, especially
B happens to be overwhelming.
Run up the stairs, throw a hat on and smell the dust burning
during the morning turn on of heat.
This is the smell of breakfast that ran out of time today.
You’ll wake up on time tomorrow and capture those toast dipped eggs.
