What was on the wall that day.
My mother sewing patches onto my brother's knees. The shape of his knee on the kitchen table. I miss that shape.
Snow falling under a streetlight at three in the morning.
The library on Bridge Street. Big windows. Linoleum. The librarian who slipped me adult books at fourteen.
The river was high this morning. Brown and fast and alive.
My garden tomato. Ate it on the way back to the house.
My dad called to tell me he was proud of me. I'm fifty-two.
Pine cones in the driveway. The squirrels are at work.
The bakery had my favorite kind left. They were saving the last one. They know my face.
I made a friend at sixty-three. I thought that was over. It is not over.
The right tool for the job.
I'm grateful for the strangers who clapped at my graduation. I had no family there. They cheered anyway.
Grateful for the kindness of strangers on the train when my baby would not stop crying. They smiled. They told me, this is what they do.