
A Letter to My Daughter (I’m Having One)
We’ll likely wake earlier when you arrive, of course, but for now I am savoring the late mornings.
We’ll likely wake earlier when you arrive, of course, but for now I am savoring the late mornings.
Seven years later, I am now in Grand Rapids again, which is a kind of beautiful, full-circle moment.
I was shocked that I had never heard of this before and watched this documentary as soon as I got home.
I care a lot about things like that. I want people to remember good things about me.
I didn’t tell her we are planning on leaving too,
and I won’t get to say goodbye.
“Kids can’t learn when they don’t feel loved, right?”
But the truth is I’ll follow you like the yellow brick road.
Anyway we walk quickly because it’s cold and I say, “I’m thirty!” but I’m also fourteen and twenty-one and making all those mistakes.
Dear twenty-seven-year-old Caroline,
Quit your job.
It’s almost enough to make you want to give up, walking home with grocery bags almost ripping.
“How many parking spaces do you think our apartment would take up?”
The days don’t vary much, and nobody minds.
They must have died eventually, the ones that we didn’t scoop out.
There was separation of church and state in the Town and Country.
But what Andrew likes best about his new place are the bookstores in the neighborhood.
We venture downtown eventually
to eat hake caught fresh that afternoon
and a pastry the waiter recommends.
That’s the thing about Frankie—he pours the glasses to the brim.
Living a life of purpose, meaning (fine…vocation), means remembering that we are here for more than ourselves and there are no ordinary people.
I did it because the studio was across the street and doing an incentive program where I got the next two months at a discount if I completed the challenge.
It gets late and pretty soon my brother is dancing on the kitchen stools to the songs he was making fun of earlier. We make mozzarella sticks and pigs in a blanket.
I recently tried to explain heartbreak to someone who has never had their heart broken. It didn’t go well.
“Good morning! There are pancakes!”
“As long as you end up married, it was a success.”
I don’t write about Steve that much on this blog because it’s cheesy and annoying and also I know that love isn’t just the cheesy stuff.
You’ll know you’re getting close to the cashiers when someone tells you to go to the yellow cheese, the red pepper or the green grapes.
In that apartment, we started with four and ended with two because Eliza got married which is a good thing and we love her wife but it’s still kind of sad because we love her too, you know?
Wear your womanhood however you prefer. Wear it as a low-cut tank top and your short-shorts in the park, drinking lemonade.
We believe in the solstice spirit
the holy Prospect Park
the fellowship of friends
the prayers of all people
the rotation of the earth
and the light everlasting.
And I walk with the man I am going to marry and my brother and Zachary who is basically my brother and we think about Ryan who was basically our brother.
You learn to love the foods that have nothing. Coffee. Mustard. Certain brands of hot sauce.