Tag Archives: love

Excursions

Time, an appreciation ….

“But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down. Not that that mystical stuff is necessarily true. The only thing that’s capital-T True is that you get to decide how you’re gonna try to see it.” — David Foster Wallace, “This is Water,” Commencement Speech to Kenyon College, 2005

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Walked into the post office yesterday morning carrying the hand-written card and extra copy of Dave Eggers’ “The Captain and the Glory” I was sending to a best-friend for his January birthday. After picking out and addressing a padded envelope, I went to take my place in line … just as a mom and her young son were walking in. 

The boy, maybe eight, was carrying a package at least half as tall as he was. Could barely peek over its top. Based on the way he was waddling, the contents had some heft. 

Carrying the lighter of our respective loads, I let ‘em go in front of me.

The post office people behind the counter were in the process of switching shifts — logging in and out and whatnot — so our patience was, um, appreciated.

Mom told the boy he could put the package down while they waited.

“I’m holding it,” he said, defiantly, standing on one leg for a sec so he could adjust his grip.

I smiled at such innocence.

Obviously, his first time waiting in line at the post office. 

Within a few seconds he was grunting.

Mom moved her suggestion from the interrogative to the imperative. 

He remained a stubborn helper. 

However, his strength timed out before the glacial logging in process. 

He put the box down. 

Looked around and noticed the floor-standing carousel of gift cards strategically placed near where the line begins. 

Asked Mom if he could have a dollar for a Roblox gift card. 

Upon which she proceeded to explain the business concept of disintermediation to her child. 

Told him it was ‘cheaper’ to just purchase credits from the site, rather than going through a middle man. 

She wasn’t merely patient. She was generous.

You could tell they spent a lot of time together for how easy their conversation was. 

Reminded me how much I enjoyed conversing with our kids when they were young. 

How much I learned from the way their minds worked. 

“Thank you for your patience, can I help the next customer?” 

The son cupped his hands back under the box. 

Hoisted. 

Waddled over to the counter and heaved it up there himself. 

“I see you brought your helper,” the freshly logged-in person behind the counter said to the mom. 

The boy answered for them both.

“She can’t lift with her one arm, so I have to carry things,” he said. 

He was brimming with “the happiness of being called upon,” as I heard it described once. 

Over the next couple minutes of the transaction, the adults left space for the boy’s participation, which he filled to overflowing.

He complemented the clerk on her gift cards, relaying how he wanted a dollar one, but his Mom said it was better to buy credits online.

“Have you ever gotten a gift card before?” the clerk asked, as she processed the postage for the box. 

“Yes,” he said. “Sometimes my Mom gets me one … when I do good things.”

I inferred from the small sample size I was witnessing that he had a few credits in the bank. 

Meanwhile, a line began to form behind me, headed by a white-haired, tightly-coated, tightly-lipped older woman. 

Who was out of both stamps and patience.

As the boy elucidated on his upcoming birthday and that one time he was late for football practice, the woman’s huffs under her breath were oddly comparable to the boy’s grunts under the box.

I made smiling ‘what-are-you-going-to-do?’ eye-contact with her a couple times to give her frustration a chance to froth over. 

She returned a couple huffy head shakes and an unsmiling eye roll. 

In these moments I like to remind myself that the exact same experience is experienced differently by the folks experiencing it. 

The reasons for a tightly-coated elder’s impatience can be just as valid as a Mom’s inexhaustible well. 

The post office can sure test both. 

Sandwiched in between — both me and time standing still — I saw life flash in front of me. 

And over my shoulder. 

Before me … a Mom doing her best to teach her boy how the world’s supposed to work, while protecting him from how it actually does with her one good arm.

Behind me …  the world’s grumpy restlessness to just get on with it.

“Thanks for your patience … Can I help the next person in line?”

I waited an extra second so I could watch the boy reach for his Mom’s hand as they left the counter.

What to the world looks like an eight-year-old’s obliviousness to time … the 55-year-old knows is, in fact, the keenest appreciation.

 

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Excursions

Dancing with Vonnegut ….

I’d just finished writing my last coffee shop letter of 2025 when I remembered we were out of envelopes at home. 

Opted for a surgical strike at Shop N’ Save, as I also needed shampoo (ran out a couple days ago) and ginger beer (just in case New Year’s Eve called for Moscow Mules). It’s right down the road from the coffee shop, saving me a trip to Wal-Mart or Target, which I try to avoid at all costs. 

The lot was pretty full with folks picking up New Year’s provisions. 

Walking in to the vestibule with the shopping carts, I saw the gentleman from the Salvation Army tucked in the corner keeping his kettle. Delighted me to see he had his banjo with him. I see him often when I visit, though not always with his banjo. He plays softly, not too fast. Sounds like folk music to me, possibly songs from his native country, but I’m not sure. He and his kettle used to sit inside the store where it’s warm, but awhile ago he told me they don’t like him playing inside, so when he brings his banjo he sets up shop in the vestibule … where it’s not warm. The majority of folks coming in and out pass right by him. 

The feeling I get seeing him with his banjo in the wintertime is the same one I get seeing lightning bugs in my back yard in the summertime.

Feels like a gift. 

Since I never know where to look for my stuff, I walked through the main body of the store, past the deli and the prepared foods counter. Caught a conversation just as someone said, “I’m playing at the President’s Pub Sunday … from 11 to two.” I turned to see a local musician I recognized, a jazz guitarist, talking to a person in a wheel chair.

I kept on walking for a couple seconds … before turning back around. 

Found the guitarist by the apples. 

“Excuse me,” I said. 

He looked up. 

“Did I hear you say you’re playing at the President’s Pub on Sunday?” 

Yeah, he said … confirming the time.  

“Oh, wow,” I replied. “I didn’t know they had jazz there anymore.” 

Yeah, he said. “They have music every Sunday. It’s not always jazz, though.”

It’s been years since I visited the President’s Pub on a Sunday morning. 

Remember going there the Sunday after my Dad’s funeral, listening to jazz and spilling a couple glorious tears into an Old Fashioned … and buying one for the pianist who took my request for Stardust. 

Not sure I’ve been back since.

I turned the corner past the bread just as two older ladies bumped into one another. They hadn’t seen each other in a while and fell into a big hug with their winter coats on. Asked each other if ‘everybody’ was all right and doing well. I didn’t have to know them to know how much they meant it.

As they wished each other Happy New Years, I went to walk around them, but an older guy with a shopping court was moving with purpose, so I paused to let him pass. 

“No, go ahead,” he said. 

He had right-of-way so I deferred. 

“No … please,” he insisted.

It was a small thing, but I got the sense he was looking for a place to put some New Year’s Eve kindness, so I accepted his invitation.

I didn’t even make it to the envelope aisle before I saw a different version of the scene I’d just witnessed — two other ladies who hadn’t seen each other in a while. They actually ‘whooped’ when they recognized each other. 

More winter coat hugs and Happy New Years. 

And behind me, I again heard the music of the older man who let me pass inviting another stranger to go in front of him. 

He and his cart were on a roll. 

And as I took the scenic route to find my envelopes, shampoo and ginger beer, I thought of Kurt Vonnegut. 

Who liked to tell the story of a time he went out for envelopes. 

How his wife thought him foolish. 

“Oh, she says well, you’re not a poor man,” Vonnegut said in a version of the story he told to PBS. 

“You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope.

“I meet a lot of people. And, see some great looking babies. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And ask a woman what kind of dog that is.

“And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And, we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore.”

After going through the self-check out, I did a quick inventory of the treasure I collected during my surgical strike …  

… a serenade from a kettle keeper who would rather be cold … as long as it meant he could keep his fingers dancing … 

… an older person out shopping for someplace to put his kindness … 

… the joy of New Year’s Eve winter coat hugs between old acquaintances.

The Shop N’ Save’s usually good for reminding me of things I forget I need. 

Though I didn’t see any babies, I had a helluva good time buying the envelope for my letter to my daughter.

On my way out I made sure to say thank you to the kettle keeper for playing me back out into the cold. 

And as I tried to remember where I parked my car in the crowded lot, I was already thinking of Sunday … 

… and whether the guitarist shopping for apples might know Stardust. 

 

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Excursions

The 12 Days of T-Shirts / Day 7: Fahrenheit 451

Joe Mugnaini’s brilliant cover for the first edition of Ray Bradbury’s incendiary novel. 

The book holds a special place in my heart for a couple reasons, on top of its timeless cautionary tale.

My daughter and I read it aloud together across many Saturday coffee-shop mornings when she was a young teenager, which was my first re-read of it in a good 20 years or so. What a wonderful way to be reacquainted. 

And during our re-reading, I was profoundly moved by a passage late in the book when Montag, on the run, encounters a group of kindred spirits living in the woods on the outskirts of town. And around a campfire, he remembers his grandfather. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone back to this passage since.

Its still glowing embers warm me as much as the campfire that coaxed the words from Bradbury’s typewriter.

It’s not only been medicine to my heart, but I’ve shared Bradbury’s beautiful words with friends and kindred spirits seeking warmth in the darkness of their own loss.

“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there.

It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the (person) who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.” 

Always makes me think of the gardeners I’ve known in my life.

Reminds me to keep planting.

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Excursions

The 12 Days of T-Shirts / Day 3: As You Wish

In the slim chance you are unfamiliar with the reference, watch Rob Reiner’s The Princess Bride, or — even better (trust me) — go read William Goldman’s novel on which the movie’s based.  

“As you wish was all he ever said to her. 

“That day, she was amazed to discover that when he was saying, ‘As you wish,’ what he meant was, ‘I love you.’”

The perfect choice for weekend chore work in service of one’s Buttercup.

I find that wearing this liberates me from having to say much, which thereby lessens my odds of saying something dumb, and/or something that will get on Buttercup’s nerves. 

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Postcards

Recipes ….

Left the house yesterday morning to meet my sister for coffee. 

There are few more lovely reasons to leave the house on a Saturday morning. 

Figured I’d swing by the post office first to pick up some stamps.

Planned to write my daughter her weekly postcard after having coffee with my big sister. 

No line when I got inside. 

Saw Maria standing behind the counter … which made me smile. 

Maria’s worked at the post office for 28 years, if I remember correctly. 

She told me last time I picked up a lasagna from her. 

Not at the post office.

At her tender restaurant A la Maria’s, on LeMoyne, where she spends her weekday evenings … lovingly making her Mom’s old Italian recipes.

Maria’s place holds a special place in my heart. 

When Karry and I got married and moved into the World’s Tiniest Apartment in East Washington, Maria’s mother ran a restaurant out of the basement of her home a couple blocks from us. 

In our early Kraft-Mac-and-Cheese-Can-of-Peas-for-Dinner days, Paesano’s was our one monthly splurge. 

Saturday night.

If the weather was nice we’d walk. 

It was BYOB so we made a ritual of picking up a $10 bottle of wine.

Made sure we were in our seats by 7 o’clock, so we could watch X-Files re-runs on the big TV that hung in the dining area …

… while slow savoring food made with love from an Italian mother’s kitchen.  

We’d take our time walking our full bellies back home — the next day’s leftover lunch in my left hand, Karry’s hand in my right. 

Everything my Saturday night could ever want back then. 

Maria’s lasagna is perfection. 

Architectural is the best way to describe it. 

Sharp corners. Rectilinear. Towering. 

Don’t know how she does it.

Every lasagna we’ve ever made at home comes out of the pan (deliciously) gloopy.

Maria’s could serve as a tornado shelter. 

Comes with about a 1/2 inch of standing red sauce pooling in the bottom of the to go container. 

Every time I get home and crack open the styrofoam box, Pavarotti sings ‘La donna è mobile’ in my head.

Comes with two thin slices of Italian bread, essential sponges for sopping up every last drop from the plate when you’ve sadly run out of lasagna.

When I put my sopped-clean-post-lasagna plate in the dish washer, the other dishes are like, “I think you meant to put this back in the cabinet.” 

So it should come as no surprise how it made me smile to see Maria behind the counter at the post office yesterday morning.

“Miss Maria,” I greeted.

“Mr. Riddell.”

“Postcard stamps?” I asked. 

“Cleaned out. Election folks bought ‘em all up.”

“Awwww. Really?”

Asked her when they might get more in. She said they’re on order, from Kansas.

“They send them regular mail … so, who knows?”

Coming from a post office person, the “Who knows?” struck me as funny. 

She said I could try the McMurray store. They have everything there. 

I thanked her for letting me know, and exhaled defeatedly, as I didn’t have the time nor inclination for a special trip. 

Was just about to say out loud that my visit wasn’t in vain, though, since I got to see her …  

… when Maria interjected. 

“Otherwise, you’d have to go two busses and some grapes.”

“Uh …. I’m sorry, what?”

“To make up the 61 cents,” she said.

Pre-caffeinated, I wasn’t following at all. 

She pulls out her drawer, takes out a couple packs of stamps. 

Starts to do math. 

Explains the busses are 28 cents … 

“So two of those …. plus a five cent stamp,” she says, holding up a pack of grape stamps. 

“So you’d need a lot of stamps,” she chuckled.

“Wait …,” I said. “Postcard stamps are 61 cents?”

“Yep. Regular stamps are 78 cents, post cards are 61.”

I had no idea. 

In my mind I thought postcard stamps were like 19 cents.

Sixty-one cents …  for such little real estate.  

I felt dumb … for having hundreds of post cards at home. 

She started to put the booklets back in her drawer, when I interjected. 

“I’ll take the busses and grapes,” I said. 

“Oh, you want to do that?” she asked.

“Just to get me through today,” I said. 

What I meant was that I’d just take a booklet of each as an interim solution. 

“Oh, so you just want enough for one?” she asked.  

I didn’t think you could do that.

I smiled at the smile on her face as I watched her tearing off a postcard’s worth of individual stamps from their booklets. 

“I guess I’m going to have to write smaller,” I said out loud. 

She broke apart the three I needed, laid them loose on the counter. 

Then an idea popped into her head.

“Here’s what you do ….” 

I watched her pick up a bus, peel it off, and carefully lay it across the other bus. 

Wasn’t sure what she was doing … maybe just consolidating onto one piece rather than sending me out with three loose stamps? 

Then she peeled the grape and surgically laid it across the second bus. 

“There …. That’s what you do,” she said. 

Proudly. 

“Leaves you more room to write,” she said. 

Oh. 

“So you can lay them across each other like that on the post card?” I asked. 

“Yep,” she said. “Only the ‘USA’ needs to be showing.” 

And I giggled out loud …  like a five-year-old who’d just seen an adult perform magic.

You should see what she does with a lasagna, I’m tellin’ ya. 

In the town where I live, there’s a person who will not only let a clueless, pre-caffeinated little brother cobble together a postcard’s worth of stamps … but will take the time to bunch ‘em as tight as the law allows … so he has as much room as possible to write to his daughter about how much he misses her.

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And after just the loveliest visit with my big sister …

… I took out my favorite pen …

… and the postcard I’d plucked special from my massive, impractical inventory …

… took my time writing small and neat …

… doing my best to make every word count …

… with all the reverence I could muster …

… as I imagined a mother might …

… writing down her favorite recipes for posterity.

Everything my Saturday morning could ever want.  

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Postcards

It’s still good ….

Sunday morning I’m downstairs at my desk when my wife pulls in the driveway, back from picking up groceries after church. 

She likes going to the early service. 

I stay behind and write. 

Both reverent in our pews, attentive to the divine.

Hearing the garage door, I walk out to help her carry in. 

Find her sitting in her car, windows up. 

“You on the phone?” I mouth, making a telephone gesture with my left hand. 

She rolls down the passenger window. 

“I wish you could see your Dad right now,” she says. “His boxers are sticking out above his pajama bottoms.”

She has our daughter on speaker. 

“ ‘Thank you for helping carry in the groceries,’  is what she means to say,” I interject, loud enough for the bluetooth to pick up.  

“And his t-shirt’s too small. Belly’s sticking out.” 

I’m provoked into issuing a statement.  

“I will not be shamed for operating in Cozy Mode on a Sunday morning,” I enter into the record. 

“It’s almost noon,” my daughter chimes in on speaker.

I almost miss being a target of their pile-ons. 

“And, let it be known that Cozy Mode may remain in effect for the next several hours,” I add, which is simultaneously the most defiant threat I can think of, and quite possibly the most pathetic utterance of my life. 

“He looks ridiculous,” my wife adds, grossly overstating the obvious.

Or, overstating the gross obvious.  

“OK, I’ll go in and change, and you can carry in the groceries,” I fire back. 

Was pretty proud of that one. I’m usually not that quick. 

“And I’ll take back the salami I picked up for you.”

She is always that quick. 

Caught me flat-footed. I didn’t see the salami coming. 

Night before, she’s putting finishing touches on the grocery order. Asks if there’s anything I want to add. 

I think for a couple seconds.  “Ooh … do we have any ….”

“Don’t even say ‘salami,’”

In legal terms I believe her asking me the question is what’s known as ‘entrapment,’ but I digress. 

I braced a second too late for what I knew was coming next. 

“I’ve thrown out the last three bags you asked me to get.”

This is true. Not sure I even opened ‘em. 

“I’m not getting it again to have to throw it away.”

Totally understand. So wasteful. 

I feel remorse for requesting salami that I habitually ignore.

I’m not sure why I do this. 

I genuinely like salami. I mean, in between two slices of bread with some yellow mustard? Perfection. Makes salads instantly, you know, fancy. Rolled up with a slice of provolone … it’s like Cozy Mode on a plate.

I have it in my head that salami keeps for a long time. Takes weeks to cure, doesn’t it? You always see ‘em hanging from wooden ceilings on TV. 

So I feel no sense of urgency with salami. Assume it’s always going to be there.

I’m surprised when she throws it away. 

Every time she does, part of me thinks, “It’s still good.” 

I realize I may not be in full command of the facts on the topic.   

Maybe I should start treating it like an avocado. 

Clock’s always tickin’ on an avocado. Doesn’t give you a chance to take it for granted. 

Or … maybe I just like the idea of salami more than, you know, consuming it.

Regardless, the way she kiboshed my request before I could even make it the night before left me convinced I’d have a lot of time to ponder the mystery while living out the rest of my salami-free days.

A punishment fitting the crime.

But … she added it to the order. 

Awwwww.

“She still loves me,” I thought.

At least enough to give me another chance.

I may or may not have placed my hand over my heart after she said it. 

Or, you know, over my t-shirt that’s at least one size too small. 

I mean, she got me salami. 

I’ve come to appreciate that such tiny graces are the wobbly cobblestones that give a marriage a chance to find its fragile footing.

“It’s still good,” I thought.

The fact that I only became aware of her kind gesture when she threatened to take it back was not lost on me.

Clock’s always tickin’ on an avocado. 

“We are such an old married couple,” I said, loud enough for the Bluetooth to hear.

For the record, I was praising us, not shaming us.

Love looks different at 54 then it did at 24.

Says the guy whose boxer shorts are peeking out over his drooping pajamas past noon on a Sunday.

Sometimes you have to put on your cheaters to notice how beautiful it still is. 

I went around back to grab the grocery bags.

Still attentive to the divine.

 

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Excursions

Sit, stay ….

Went for a walk over lunch the other day in the industrial park near our office. 

Note to self — take more walks over lunch. 

Figured I’d go 15 minutes out and double-back. 

I followed the concrete sidewalk as far as the giant fenced cell tower behind one of the Mitsubishi buildings. 

In the 20 years I’ve worked here, I’ve never gone farther than the big tower.

Was about to turn around … just as a person happened to be coming the other way, earbuds in.

“Excuse me,” I said. 

Asked him where the rest of the trail goes.

“If you keep going straight through the woods, it comes to a park.”

Said he believed there might be a left and a right, too, but he’d never done those. 

His response made me curious enough to break my routine and keep going.

Two minutes later I found myself under a fairy-tale-worthy canopy of trees … when I happened upon this.

 

The plastic bag’s what got me to stop. 

And smile autonomically. 

I can’t remember if I actually said, “Awww,” or … just felt it.

My heart immediately filled thinking of the tender deliberateness of whoever thought to take the photo.

And get it printed so small … at the perfect size to invite a closer look.

Then framed. 

And come back … to give the world passing by … a reason to stop … and autonomically smile.

I wondered at what point the thoughtfulness occurred to put it in a plastic bag … to give it a chance against the elements.

Wondered if they brought the pup when they placed it.

Wondered if they said anything.

I wondered if they knew how much it might mean to a stranger out for a walk over lunch … to be reminded that such gentle souls exist in this world. 

I just stood there for a few minutes … and danced with a million questions I will never know the answer to.

If the photographer knew Kyle. 

Family maybe? 

Kyle’s dog? 

They go for walks here? 

Or maybe it was a stranger who just noticed the bench and thought Kyle’s memory might want some company.

Considering the possibility that there might be such people in the world was enough for me.

Faith, hope and love … all wrapped up in a tiny plastic bag left loose on a bench.  

I wished on the spot for it to remain there forever. 

Though I knew it was just as likely that it might be gone by my next walk.

I’ll let you know.

Just in case … I wanted to wrap it all up … to protect it from the elements … and leave it here for you to stumble upon and smile … and wonder while the world passes.

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Postcards

Eternal light …

Waking up, thinking of saints this Sunday morning. 

Yesterday, Karry mentioned in passing that it would have been her Mom’s 90th birthday. 

I confessed that over the past couple of days I found myself registering the month and days, sifting my brain as if there was a birthday I should be remembering, but coming up empty.

Betty passed way too early, at 71, from colon cancer. Can’t believe it’s been 19 years. Peter and Emma were so young.

There’s a photo we keep on the mantle in the dining room. 

I can’t remember the exact circumstances, but I think it was the first time we visited her house after her passing.

I just remember it was a photo that demanded to be taken. 

On the day I remember entering the house through the garage door (as we almost always did)  … taking the stairs up to the main floor … and coming to the top of the steps. 

Instinctively looking left. 

When Peter was young and we’d visit, Gram would always leave a present for Peter in the window in the dining room. 

Usually a little Matchbox car or truck. 

Once loosed from the car, he’d tear up the steps, expectant … look left and make a beeline to the window to see what treasure she had left him. 

She never forgot. He never even had to ask. Even when we’d show up unannounced, there was always something waiting for him in the window.

I always thought that the ritual of that was just the most perfect summing up of Karry’s mom. 

While I hid my enthusiasms better than Peter, I always came up those steps, expectant, too. 

You knew there would always be a simple kindness waiting for you. 

A sweet tea. 

An egg sandwich. 

Something from the garden. 

And, if it was Sunday, a feast for the ages. 

Oh, how she threw down on Sundays. 

On the day we visited after her passing, I remember looking left and seeing the window sill empty.

But instead of feeling the emptiness of that, I registered the sight of the sun’s morning rays blasting through the window, bathing the sill in the most wonderful light.

As if the heavens were conferring their eternal special blessing on that tender, sacred space.

It struck me in the moment, as it still does these 19 years later, as the perfect embodiment of Betty’s love and kindness. 

The promise of a present always waiting in the window.

Betty’s eternal light.  

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Fathers and Sons, The Girls

23 & 20 ….

When Karry was pregnant with Emma, people would ask Peter, who was three at the time, whether he wanted a little brother or a little sister. 

His answer was always the same.

“No.”

That one still cracks me up.

I mean, for a three-year-old … that’s a glorious comeback, right there. 

And when I called Karry’s Mom from the hospital to let her know it was, in fact, a girl … and Betty, in turn, informed Peter (who she was watching while we were at the hospital), he made a beeline for the kitchen sink, climbed in the space underneath it, and shut the door behind him. 

Years later, whenever people would ask me about our kids, I’d find myself saying, “My son’s ____ (16 … 18 … 20, etc.) , and he’s still getting used to the fact that he has a little sister.”

All of the above, true.  

So … to be gathered around the table last night in our tiny dining room, surrounded by all our Christmas and life clutter …

… the four of us slow-savoring every bite of the by-request chocolate meringue flourless cake big brother made his little sister for her 20th birthday … 

… listening to them geeking out with each other about the cake’s cross section …

… him sharing with her how the recipe’s author discovered how to do the marbling on top, and how he was meticulous in following the directions … for fear of all the inherent gluten-free and dairy-free landmines …

… how he’s never been one to follow directions … a proud by-product of the Fordyce stubborness he comes by honestly …

… getting to bear witness to a big brother’s pride in receiving his little sister’s approval.

Forgive me if it’s gonna take me awhile to get used to that fact.

I mean, that he wanted to get it just right for her.

Let’s just say … such sweetness is worth the wait. 

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Letters for Maggie

Free Refills ….

Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024 6:28 a.m. 

Got up yesterday morning feeling … untethered. Outside, the sun was coming up on an unseasonably warm November day. The kind of sunshine we almost don’t deserve. I was feeling the heaviness of everything.

All the noise would soon be coming to its unnatural conclusion. I’d just poured my ritual 10 Tuesday ounces into my Thermos, but my cup still felt empty. 

So I got in my car and drove towards the small coffee shop on North Main Street. The one where I like to write my daughter postcards on Saturdays. It’s quiet. One room. Handful of tables, small counter on which is perched a little clear case with baked goodies made by Nicole, one of the kind staff there. Reliably chill playlist. 

I didn’t need a coffee. Just some humanity.

So, halfway up Main Street, I peeled off into the drive through at the bank. Got some cash from the machine. Humble pebbles for the scale, I told myself. 

Got to the coffee shop right as it opened at 8. Parked across the street, and followed a woman in the front door. She was friends with the barrista on duty, and they dove right into easy conversation. Denise, the barrista, paused their conversation to wait on me. I ordered my cortado, paying with my Darth Vadar credit card. Added a small tip. 

After placing my order, I asked Denise if they still did Pay It Forward. She nodded. I handed over what I’d withdrawn from the machine. 

She thanked me, and I took a seat by the counter while she prepared my to go order. 

When in walked a middle aged man in a ballcap. Kinda scruffy. Came in chatty. 

Asked Denise, “What’s the strongest coffee you have?” He went on to say that he’d been nine years sober, mentioning the exact number of months and days for good measure. “So coffee’s a very important thing in my life.” 

After Denise informed him of the dark roast of the day, he asked what sizes they had. 

“How much is in a large?” he asked. Twenty ounces, she replied.

He asked her how much refills were. They’re free, Denise said. 

From my chair I apprehended that maybe he didn’t have much on him. Probably didn’t have anywhere in particular to be. Interested in how far and for how long his dollars might stretch.

The stories we tell ourselves about the world around us. 

He ordered his 20 ounces, asked her what he owed. 

She told him not to worry about it. 

“I’m sorry?” he said. 

I tensed up a bit. I didn’t want to be around to watch anything. 

I just came in to put a few pebbles on the scale and be on my way.

“It’s taken care of,” was all she said. 

I exhaled.  

“Wow,” he said. “Really? Um, thank you.” 

He paused a beat. 

“When I came in, I could tell that you had a really kind face.” 

I smiled from my chair, because I think I said those exact words to Denise the last time I was in. It occurred to me that was also the day I dropped off my mail-in ballot at the county’s voter registration office. 

I needed some humanity that day, too. Denise’s gesture unlocked his. 

“You know, I was always a big egomaniac. I hurt a lot of people with my ego. But one of the biggest things they teach you is humility.

“A big part of learning humility is that receiving kindness is just as important as giving kindness. It’s not easy … but I’ve learned how to receive kindness.”

He asked Denise her name so he could thank her by it. Gave his in return.

Strong coffee in hand, he started to make his way to a table. Then he paused.

What he did next … I will never forget.

He turned back to Denise. 

“Now I’m going to just have to find someone to pay your kindness forward,” he said. 

He sees me sitting in my chair. 

I met his gaze just in time to see his eyes alight.  

“Can I buy you a coffee?” he asked me. 

The best sermons are the ones you don’t see coming. 

I thanked him profusely for giving me what I woke up needing from the world. What I’d hoped to find driving up Main Street not needing a coffee.

The way it came out was, “Already got one on the way. But, next time I see you, maybe we can have one together.” 

He asked me my name. Gave his in return. 

“God bless you, Pete,” he said. 

“Backacha,” was all the lump in my throat would allow. 

Pebbles on the scale.

Denise parked my cortado on the counter. I got up from my chair and met her at the register. 

Exchanged fist bumps, and received the warmest smile from her kind face.  

The kind of sunshine we most certainly deserve.

There are saints all around us. Most are hidden in plain sight. Sometimes they don’t look like you or me. 

We need to humble ourselves to see them.

So we can receive their kindness. 

So that when our own cups are empty, we can be reminded that refills are free.

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