Letters, Quotes, Memory,
& Recipes.
Of all things, I had a conversation this morning about Adirondack chairs with the cashier at Aldi. Her name is Stephanie and she thinks the chairs aren't the right style for her yard. I think they will be perfect for sitting down by the lake and, being plastic, they will be easy to move when the lawn guys come. The chairs will only last a few years because the sun will fry them and then they will crack. But for now, they are just right.
This past Sunday, I drove to Anderson with Sailor in tow to attend the visitation for my Great-Uncle Kirk. Born on September 15, 1930, he and Bauer became birthday buddies when Bauer was born on the same date in 2005. Since my mom couldn’t make the visitation, I was thankful I could go on behalf of our family. I have kept in touch by letters over the years with Kirk's wife, my Great-Aunt Bobbie, so it was good to see her in person.
You Can't Have It All
But you can have the fig tree and its fat leaves
like clown hands gloved with green...
You can have the purr of the cat
and the soulful look of the black dog,
the look that says,
If I could I would bite every sorrow until it fled,
and when it is August,
you can have it August and abundantly so.
I haven't written about writing letters in quite some time, but that doesn't mean I haven't been writing letters. While it's true that I don't correspond as frequently with others as I was doing a couple years back when I wrote a letter every single day for a year, I still have a collection of friends with whom my correspondence is solely through handwritten letters, back and forth, pen to paper, red flag to red flag.
