The Lost Letter: The Story of Almost Us

[A letter: December 2010] The art of losing, they say, isn't very hard to master. And just like every person on this planet I have lost something; people and places and memories that certain smells and seasons and dates unexpectedly return to me. I traded and bartered parts of who I am and who I was for bits and pieces of the people and places and memories I wanted to keep. Just like every person on this planet I have been dented and dinged and bruised somehow. Smart enough to know better, but not smart enough to do better, because I believed and hoped and dreamed. And believers and hopers and dreamers are the exact kinds of people who push themselves too close to the edge of a high shelf just to take in the view. We're never concerned with the fall. We are reckless people, fearless in the face of fear. We gamble, punch drunkenly, and take chances despite the odds. We spin madly out of control with our heads thrown back, laughing wildly.

Just like every person on this planet I am learning how to forgive and remember that every person here has a heart and wishes and desires and wants, too.

There is a box on the shelf of me somewhere. Its contents? Nine yellow balloons. Two magnets. A field sunflowers happy anywhere but the vase. A once upon a time flying jellyfish waiting to transport us to lunch or float us away into outer space.

Today I have returned the pixie dust to the proper jar. The spines of books and thoughts color-coded and realigned. Bedtime precedes the lavender hour these days. Before voices soften and the first morning birds begin to sing.

If once upon a time, someone would have told me, in a certain tone of voice, "Some people will change you without your permission,"  I would still have done it all the same.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

No one lives (or loves) to tell the story of the almost us.

A Letter to an Author: Chasing Narwhals and Saying Hello

Writers writing writers. It's a bit like bears riding bikes. It happens.

I read your book today, cover to cover.

From a writer to a writer, thank you for this.

I have always found it strange to self-identify as a “writer.” In my experience, when you tell people, "I am writer," they look at you as though you've just announced you are leaving the priesthood to track narwhals for the rest of your life.

It’s even stranger when it's the others who identify you as a writer. “I’ve been doing this since first grade,” I want to tell them. “And I won a handwriting contest in 6^th grade. You won't believe what I can do on a steamy bathroom mirror and a grocery list.” (But that would be a little snotty, I realize.)

Sometimes I cannot tell whether I am the happiest girl to ever pick up a pen or if I rue the day ink was born. Nobody tells you what this world is really like. (Though I suppose I could have guessed had I paid more attention to the infinite bottle-bottom wisdom of Hemingway, Bukowski and Anais Nin.) Writers live in a suspended state of voluntary solitude, surrounded but alone. We speak to everyone and no one. The feelings, the thoughts, the experiences are ours, but we fling them out into space and onto the page, only to give them away to strangers and sometimes-acquaintences like cards at Christmas.

(Sometimes, I admit, I am tempted to run back to the mailbox to reel them in again.) “These are mine! They are special. You cannot understand.” And then there is that one stranger who sends a note in broken English reading: “You remember to people that life is wonderful” and the world makes sense again.

I read your book today, cover to cover.

You were like finding tribe. Your words transported me to the prime of my utter recklessness. When everything I said and did was a dichotomous soup of “fuck you” and “I love you,” pulling closer and pushing away, with you but somehow against you. (The royal "you," I mean.) I wrote nightly letters, odes to the secret lives of neon lights and ponderings about the first person to add chili powder to chocolate ice cream. I wrote about bouquets of wooden spoons and a master plan to make the weeping willows stop weeping. I was propelled toward paper by a treacherous muse. The kind I had no business talking to (and certainly had no business loving.)

The broken heart I could have forgiven. It’s the songs and places that bothered me the most. With enough time and thread, you can patchwork a heart back together again. I wish I could say the same for the city.

But I suspect you already know all of this. And after reading your book, I wonder if, at the end of the day, broken hearts and road trips are really all that different.

I read your book today, cover to cover.

You remembered to me that the world is wonderful.

All of this is just to say…thank you.

And hello.

A Letter to a Friend: The Joy of Dirty Dishes

[From a letter to a friend] I hate it when people leave, but I adore the silent hum and hush that fills the house after a happy evening with people you love. I spent my childhood sneaking peeks at my parents’ parties, trying to figure out where that magic comes from. To this day, I still haven’t been able to find the right word for it, but I know what it feels like. And I know how to spot the artifacts and fingerprints it leaves whispering in its wake. Empty wine bottles, corks here and there. Layers of plates stacked on top of one another. Plate, wadded up cocktail napkin, utensil. Plate, wadded up cocktail napkin, utensil.  Stacks of dirty dishes in the sink – and for just one night, nobody cares.

It fills the empty spaces between walls and floors, foundations and ceilings radiating with an almost palpable sense of aliveness.

It’s hard for me to imagine many other moments in life when I feel more acutely aware of the passing of time than in the hum and hush, alone at last, just me and the dirty dishes. These moments leave me feeling deeply blessed, wishing for a bigger dinner table…and more minutes, more years, more dinners, more cheers, more refills and popped corks and cups of coffee (I won’t drink) with dessert.

If I ever write a cookbook, I’m going to call it “The Joy of Dirty Dishes.”

And I will mean it.