What was on the wall that day.
My partner texts me when she sees a cardinal. I love cardinals. She doesn't have to.
The blue heron is back at the pond. He's the same one. I'm sure of it.
Spring break, 1993. A motel pool. My brother and I underwater making faces. We came up laughing every time.
Honeysuckle on the back fence. The whole yard smells like 1986.
My father had one good suit. He wore it to my graduation, my brother's, my sister's, his own retirement. It outlived him.
I have a tomato plant on the fire escape. It has eleven flowers. I'm beside myself.
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.
My mother painted the porch every spring. The same blue. Always the same blue.
A clean stove.
My father taught me to change a tire on a back road one summer. We made a day of it.
The teacher who hugged me when my grandfather died. She wasn't supposed to. She did anyway.
Grateful for the people who keep the city libraries open. I would not be who I am without them.