I know I am like the rain.

True friendship recognizes no age gap. Its love does not readily admit distance, wane in the absence of a phone call, or recruit negativity. It fills dark, lonely, yawning nights with flashes of light and laughter. Its unconditional severity of relentless joy makes its recipients breathe easier. It reminds two people that they are more than a human shell. It necessitates us to recognize our spirituality because if we are lucky enough, we share with another that thing they call "kindred spirits".

How else is it possible to understand the message and depth behind a text said with only two words so that it might bring you to tears or create a hearty laughter that echoes in your throat?

How else can one simply look and know because your eyes told them so? To respond to a sentiment before you reach out to tell of it, to harness support, compassion, or encouragement in that very moment you falter; to find your footing on the other's cupped hands as they patiently wait to hoist you into your next great chapter.

How else can you find the freedom that comes with a vulnerability so raw? To lay your human experience plainly in the sight of another without the compelling fear that you should be judged for it.

And instead, you are welcomed with open arms.

Plain and Simple

Your fingertips hit each key expertly with the support of practice behind you and the confidence of skill within you. You effortlessly trill the keys and bring me to a sense of peace because I too have confidence in your ability to carry the song through to a graceful completion. The melody I am familiar with becomes exciting and serene all at once. The treble lends harmonic notes that curve across the staff without a care and the bass gives a sturdy ground from which they launch.

The key changes awaken emotions that bring me to tears. Even the dissonances yield into easy recoveries that bend into grand plies I want to pick up and hold tightly so that I may remember this feeling your songs give me. The power is found at once in that which you hold back. Instead of a relentless appeal to the senses you present a quiet gift that dances and twirls until the heartbreakingly beautiful keys at last rest, until it is again time to find oneself among them. 

I breathe easier, think more clearly, and truly find my heart's beat amidst these notes, your notes. 

It was seven years

The last time your family gathered in this house to celebrate Thanksgiving was 2006, so I felt it was a wonderful obligation to open the house to others on this day in honor of the spirit it carried for many years.

So we decided to deep fry a turkey, roast vegetables, and roll out a pumpkin pie. Nanny brought too much food to count and others brought a myriad of more dishes. Within hours the countertops were filled with glass pans that held stuffing, cheese, and carbohydrates made with love and anticipation of being together. We turned on jazz music and a muted football game, threw the curtains open and asked the sunshine to warm our house.

People arrived in groups with smiles and jokes. We greeted with hugs, poured drinks with laughter and wandered from indoors to out without a care. The children took to running in circles through the garage and yard, into the side door and alongside the kitchen, where I stationed myself and timed the last of the dishes cooking and reheating. We could not stop talking about the hummus appetizer, the Paleo gravy made with cashews. We said thanks, we ate, and we raved.

We drank coffee, threw the football, and sat talking.

The cutting, cooking, cleaning, and preparation for days like these are the art that is creating life. It cannot be in vain, for now that day is captured in each of our memories in different ways. We may not recall finite details but we will remember how we felt, we will remember the love and the joy. And the gift to possess these moments is the greatest for which we could ask.

We parted, full of food and even more, full of spirit.

Dearest Nina

It was that sadness I detected in your voice that made me realize you did not want a goodbye dinner with us because it was too emotional.  Somehow, it made it easier for me to embrace your move once I understood you could not say goodbye in that way, either.

I remember the first time you visited our apartment. Sitting on the couch and fawning over the new puppy as Matthew sat next to you. I walked in carrying groceries and was appalled that I had not cleaned that morning, but the only thing you cared about was our 8-week old puppy romping around the floor at your feet. It was that night we were invited to a Christmas party at the neighbor's and you wore a large sparkling necklace that I admired. You laughed and told me it was an old Christmas decoration and invited me to see the art on the walls of your apartment. We walked together and I admired your artwork and it was then you began to tell me your life stories.

Our friendship neither grew quickly nor slowly. It just was. We visited one another's apartments, you with your dog and I with mine. You watched my pup grow, gave advice, and took him for countless walks when we worked during the day.

Weeks and months passed. We became fond of one another. You left us magazines at our doorstep and cards for our birthdays. I made sure to save you extra portions of our dinners and would scramble quickly to knock on your door in hopes you'd not yet eaten. You were kind to try the food either way.

We have sat at the huge window in your living room and looked out over the treetops and talked about life. We talked of the most intimate things, we talked of the silliest. You told me so many escapades of your youth that I decided I should want to write a story.

You took a fall and hurt yourself badly. You had to re-learn how to walk. And my dog and I visited you in rehab and you were so proud of how he'd grown.

I gave you a journal to record your memories.


We drove to restaurants, talked about sex, gave advice, were upset with one another, joked with each other, always helped the other with anything.

We went to the movies once, remember? You didn't like it because you cannot hear very well anymore. But we sat there together through the whole production and afterwards it was very late, but you wanted to go out with me. We went downtown and visited the cigar shop and spoke with friends. I held your hand to steady you as we walked along the uneven sidewalk.

Next week you will move. I have ignored this fact for as long as I am able. Yet tonight you told me that this weekend you will come and drop off a desk you want us to have and you will say hello and goodbye and that will be it. You will leave.

You will drive to Florida and move into your retirement home.

No longer will I bring you food next door. Never again will I see you out for mail or rap on your door in my ski socks and pajama bottoms in hopes to talk about life. These are treasured memories, my friend. They tell the story of how you helped me learn was it is to be a woman, a business owner. You encouraged me to be myself. You are a part of the first years of our marriage, you are the third owner of our dog. You are one of my dearest friends.

You are only moving, I know.

But oh, how you will be missed.

Tuesday

I showed the last one of you out the door and locked it behind you, reentered the kitchen to sweep and mop, to clean the machine, to wash and sanitize the dishes.

Standing alone against the harsh kitchen florescence, the mood was melancholy in the quietest way, but I fought the desire to easily yield myself to it. Crossing the store to turn on the music was a good decision and soon Bob Dylan's voice seized the airwaves. And so I scrubbed dishes. And so, of course, I thought.

It began with the steam wands, determining whether I'd yet cleaned them out. I thought about the other necessities in closing the store: disinfecting the toilet bowl, restocking the napkin dispenser and the like. I thought about how good our soap display in the corner smells.

The tasks were quickly completed. It was a last-minute decision to make a hot chocolate for the drive downtown and when I walked outside the wind ripped across my cheeks and I greedily gurgled hot chocolate into my mouth to warm me.

I took the Spruill Avenue route. And whether it was the cold dark night or that forsaken Snow Patrol song on the radio, or the intervals of hot chocolate sips, I do not know. But whatever it was brought a surrealism to the short 10-minute drive. The darkness was penetrating and the people on Spruill avenue continued. They continued to ride the Carta bus and exit it in groups, yelling and laughing and walking home. They continued to walk with a saunter across the road wearing dark clothes and foolishly putting themselves in danger. They continued to sit and watch, smoke their cigarettes, hold a daughter's hand as she in a bulky pink jacket waddled along.

The darkness was briefly pierced by stoplights and an occasional floodlight, everything washed in tones of sepia and sometimes black and white. I saw to my left a flashy building with the bright, white word "Polished" laden across its painted gray bricks. To the right was a homeless man and his shopping cart. I drove on.

Eventually I entered downtown and found a spot to park and planned to get out of the car. But the wind ripped and its harsh howls convinced me to curl into the driver's seat and hold my knees to my chest. I was now down on King Street, parked and waiting and watching people as they walked by with loved ones, with drinking buddies, by themselves.

I called an old friend.

And for the next 1 hour, 22 minutes, and 47 seconds I sat in the car and was reminded of what good people I am granted to know. A 69-year old woman who, best friends with my mother, had a part in raising me, who I have not spoken to in a very long time, and who answered her phone at 9:00 on a Tuesday night.

And we spoke and we laughed. We laughed so hard as we reminisced together, she at her kitchen table or perhaps on a couch and I in my car, huddled and holding my knees closely. We spoke of travels, and her children, of my business, and our families. We asked one another if we'd painted recently and realized that neither one has. And then we remembered years ago, a vacation when we awoke early and took our canvases and paints to the beach and sat in the sand and watched the sun rise. We painted what we saw. We spilled paint across the grains and onto our skin and we laughed so hard.

"I still have those paintings hanging on my wall," she said.

Bark and Leaves

Our memories are moldable plastic. Perhaps I find solace in my earliest ones because I was young enough to trust myself. I trusted the good in the world, that my dolls would never leave my side. I knew I would find the proper dishes for my fort in the forrest. My dress-up apron would never fray. My parents would not grow old.

We are the potters of our moldable, plastic memories. I choose to cling to the memory of playing tennis on the gravel with my father, laughing as we bounced rubber balls off large rocks. I remember putting sticky pink blush on Grandma Helen's cheeks, rouging them with my index finger and concentration.

My brother and the way his mouth curves when he concentrates. That upper lip curls itself downward to a point.

That tree in the middle of the yard, an evergreen that now towers over most things.

There is so, so much I remember about the first 13 years of my life. So many heartfelt memories and I begin to cry from its beauty. I could become lost in that yester-world.

And after the move I remember pieces, moments of life. But never again as I once remembered. Never again those lilacs in the spring, the taste of a carrot right from the garden. Those plastic memories. I try but all I can remember is the VO5 shampoo I used once: coconut and lime. I remember the smell of the wood floors Dad once laid, the texture of the pull-out sofa.

What happened to that sensuality of life? Childhood versus adolescence offers a vast divide. I am more at home with my childlike self, amidst my bark and leaves. Amidst its ease, perhaps.

Unless

Work shuts down when the lights are turned and the door is locked. We sometimes shuffle together, once in awhile alone, toward the parked cars. We gather ourselves into the seats and dissipate the lot, intending to gather tomorrow for another round of everything this is.

And the night stretches before me when the walks with the dog are finished. The leaves outside are raked. Dinner and dishes and dessert and vacuuming; it is all done. The night stretches before me and it leads me to that moment that comes each night in the silence that makes me catch my breath.

I am afraid of failing at that thing I love most. 

And another birthday nears and I am still quite young. But life is marching itself onward and I have but this one chance at it. And that self I was in college shakes the ribcage of who I am now, trying to reawaken the energy I possessed for writing. And my self now says, "hush, you do not know the definition of tired" and takes another exaggerated breath and scans the imaginary list for tomorrow.

"Be like a child," my soul begs me. 

But how can I now? For I am strewn, and worn, and gasping for air. 

To save her

It is dark tonight, Mel. You have traded so much precious life en masse in exchange for the ruling handed down from a stranger. A justice-seeker who does not know your heart, does not know your husband's, who cannot grasp your grief.

And for this I weep internally. It is as though my heart has sopped the tears and heartache, the questions and confusion and the time - all of that time - as though my heart has tried to soak it in, just a bit for you. I hope to share your pain in order to ease it and know it cannot be so.

You will not know that a young woman with bobbed hair and pajamas wraps herself in a patchwork quilt tonight and writes her aches into the folds of the Internet and tries to let you know that you are strong. That she sees those photos, those endless, interfering photos of you across the headlines, and sees your internal strength, your compassion and grace. This process has aged your worry over that little girl you love. It has stolen moments that were meant to give life and instead handed you empty arms and no outcome.

It is dark tonight, Mel. I hear my breath in the quiet evening and I admire each time you have stood before a judge and allowed him to determine your merit amid the legalities, allowed them to shower you with questions and cross-examinations while others scoff at you.

You are strength, you are dignity. And I pray that this dark evening is soon enveloped by the bright burst not only of news, but of the good news for which you have longed for these past three years.

This Home, Now.

Because I know each crevice and mishap of the caulking in the shower, because I know the places where mold tends to grow inside the cabinets. Because I was the one who tried for a solid two hours to find a stud and was proud to mount the television on the wall by myself to surprise you upon getting home, because I have kneed down and scrubbed the grout in the tiles with hard bristles and Comet and strict attention. This is why I am saddened to leave this home you and I have created. To remember those long weekend afternoons when I impressed you by making homemade bread, by roasting meat in the oven and presenting a meal with fixings and love and an earnest heart.

Those days we lingered before a marathon of useless shows, just because we could. And that we would drink wine in the early afternoon and that we could sit on the porch when we cared to, or not if we didn't.

It is because that bedroom houses our secrets, because the bathroom hosted early morning routines: the powder I use after a shower, our preferred brand of toothpaste, that metal comb you bought to brush through the dog's ears.

Tonight I take a sponge across our countertops for the final time. I clean out the refrigerator and I remember the food we have prepared together, the soups we have stored in the freezer.

I reach out and touch the memories. Old, new, difficult, breathless, excited, happy, lethargic, content. The walls whisper so many stories about me and you.

I close the door and make my way to the elevator for the last time. I am walking away from the home where we have made a good life to share these past 3 1/2 years. And I realize you and I and our dog are those who make this good life.  And yet, I find myself breathing heavily as the metal elevator door closes for my final trip down.

Pour

And then there were two.

Two of us who have skirted and strewn our lives across the pages of this book with hopes to write a compelling story about a coffeehouse that was more than just that; the existence of a thing that stationed itself squarely in the middle of people who found themselves revisiting our shop. To write words like community and quality and fostering into our walls as if with invisible ink that sets and dries into the plaster and easily shows itself to the children who enter.

Who want to hear your story. About the dog running away on the beach, your friends who got engaged and married in a month, your Polish neighbor who crossed the border holding a bright bouquet of balloons. Between the coffee grinds and the heavy layers of foamed milk, the broken plumbing and the advertising meetings, there is excitement.

Excitement about what it means to live life in the South during this time with the people around us, drinking caffeine.

Fold yourself around the idea that you are accepted. You are loved in a distinct way that involves your morning and afternoon drinks of choice. Without offering much what we can offer to you is to take care of that small divinity to which you treat yourself. We can make it as best we know how and give it as if a warm hug that says, "You matter". Because with or without us, you do.

In the earliest morning hours before even the sun itself rises we are wrapping pastries and measuring scoops. This is because we like to consider that fact that on some days we are honored enough to help you remember your value, if even through the smallest means of water over beans.

Just start writing, they say. And then, once you've worked at it, revised it, toiled over the piece, you'll give up on it and begin another. And if you do this for volumes worth of work you will eventually, maybe, find something of worth that lives up to the standards you have (and by the way they are high and unreasonable, but very polished standards).

Ok, fine then.

Lilacs.

Huge bushes of them, taken for granted, bloomed each spring, They introduced themselves across the entire west side of our yard in Valley City with a light and intoxicating fragrance that is still unparalleled. The smallest blooms grouped together in the thousands to present a stunning conspiracy of a bouquet that was unmatched by any other in the yard.

Purple, white. Sometimes a strange hybrid that produced a soft pink. Always stunning, lilacs were the great crescendo of an awakening Spring season.

Dogs.

Your tongue hangs lopsided out of the left corner of your mouth, little one. Your eyes shine and your mouth is wide open after our walk. For its entirety you trotted alongside of me and snapped your head from side to side to discover every small thing you could. The grass you have smelled one hundred times is as new today as it was three years ago. But behold, although I am merely an observer at this I realize your intentions. To become a king in your neighborhood, known and formidable. We are not that different after all, you and I. We understand the marks we leave behind - in whatever our preferred fashion - are oft the only we are able to grant passing strangers.

Beer.

Open a beer, commence cooking.

For a time I convinced myself I liked pilsners the best, with a dry, fruit-forward, lightly crisp taste that is easy to anticipate with each sip. Then I discovered the oatmeal stout, a heavy drink that lazily wraps itself around your tongue and seems to thicken in your stomach. An amber ale is a steady regular and a lager of the same ideal, but the real adventure lies in the hoppy affects that an unruly IPA will present its taster. So carry onwards and up, toast to a good dinner, and invite your favorite friends.
And keep chipper, there is plenty of good beer.

Perhaps, now. It is again time to write.

Dear virtual diary,

Please give me a few days to remember you. I will mull clever words around in my head and try to remember them long enough to tell you stories that make no difference either way. I will assume no one will read this and greedily accept the secret that I am publishing my very own thoughts onto a website. And this will be enough for now but my spirit still hopes I will retain the hunger I once felt compelled to feed. May I never forget the first real loves of my life: words.