tell your mom you love her!

My first real kiss was Ian Lombardi, the school bad boy who wore leather jackets and drove a cool car and helped my mom make chicken dinners. He went to culinary school in Italy and started a restaurant in Tacoma last year called Merende. I was going to stop by and congratulate him before I left but somehow, time slipped away from me.


I just found out that Ian killed himself the day after we landed, and I can't stop shaking. I think of all the people in my life who mean so much to me and don't want to waste a minute in telling them. It's so cliche to talk about the transience of time and how life is short, but reading the obituaries and seeing familiar faces is just a reminder that I don't want to let a day go by without hugging my mom and telling my world how thankful I am for each person.

If you're reading this, you mean more to me than you know. Don't forget to pass it on... today, not tomorrow.

relativity, family-style

Alzheimers homes don't smell very good all the time. The conversation isn't always quick-witted (although sometimes it will surprise you). And they can be both wrenchingly lonely and quietly encouraging at the same time. These are all things I thought about as I sat on my grandpa's bed on Saturday, filing his nails and making him eat his sweet potatoes.

My mom's father Eugene is 92 years old and, according to her, "a 7.5 out of 8" on the dementia scale. Generally my mother goes to visit and take care of him alone, which I hate, but she goes cheerfully, which I admire. This weekend, the three of us trekked over together. Part of me thinks I was going to say goodbye to him, and a smaller part is a little hopeful that I was. He just seems to be outliving himself, and it's a difficult thing to watch.

In April, before my sister left to begin her life as a Faux-rean (that sounded better in my head than it looks written down), we went over to spend Grandpa Gene's birthday with him. It was an event that was exceptional only in its unexceptionalism. We sat at a dining room table. We chatted about our day. We laughed and wished birthday wishes for his upcoming year. It was as if we had been catapulted back in time, years ago, when his wife and my grandma was still alive and we sat conversing idly at a table about nothing and everything at once. You know, like families do.

Our food arrived: chicken breasts for us and unrecognizably-chopped-up chicken breast for him. "You've gotta be kidding me," he muttered to himself as he poked at the plate listlessly.

I have to say the following things about my grandpa: he can be one of the most crotchety, cranky people I have ever met, and he is universally popular no matter where he goes. Grace, the sweet Mexican girl who works at the home, came in repeatedly to make sure my grandpa had whatever he wanted. Rather than eating dinner, he drank three hot chocolates in a row, with whipped cream, brought to him by the doting waitress who wanted to make sure everything was perfect for him.

"He's a very special man," Grace grinned affectionately. "I want to be sure to show him extra care. I don't have parents, and I don't know what it's like, to have to take care of someone older."

My dad, as he does at any mention of a life story, tuned in. "Oh no. What happened?"

"They died when I was eight, in a car accident in Mexico." She placed more bread in front of Gene.

"I have five kids of my own now," she smiled bittersweetly, "and I wish they could have known my parents." She left to get more hot chocolate as the three of us sat, a little stunned, feeling the need to observe some silence for her decades-old loss.

Yes, it is difficult to watch someone you love grow old and lose track of the person you once knew. But Grace reminded us that even those things, when viewed correctly, are blessings: my mom still has a dad. We have had a grandfather who, 20 years ago, shaved his mustache so he could kiss us goodnight, and who taught us how to dance and drink McDonalds coffee and play Pavarotti on his record player and take long walks in his apple orchards and cook an egg in the microwave and love your spouse immensely. I'm grateful for everything his years have contained, and especially grateful for the fact that he has gotten so many of them.

keeping time.

I've never worn a watch, but I used to like keeping track of my comings and goings by the expiration dates on milk cartons. It brought me a secret joy to have something as tangible as the spoiling of food as a marker of my time before the next adventure. Watching the days tick down as the extra sharp cheddar in the fridge door got older, little by little, was like a paper-chain countdown in my head.

The cereal in my cupboard now has dates well into November. I grin a little at breakfast when I remember that by the time this cereal is stale, I will already be 7,000 miles away.

I love the little arcane mental quirks that keep us company when no one is looking...

this is my friend ryan.

The trajectory of our friendship has gone like this: at age 17, we were watching Being John Malkovich and I was in love with him. At 19, we became best friends ("we're just like sisters!" a drunk Ryan grinned at me that New Years, which I guess meant "siblings) as we navigated the first months of college together. It's hard not to bond when you share a small section with a painfully emo English TA who was personally living out Kafka's "The Hunger Artist." We learned firsthand that life indeed imitates art as we scribbled draft after draft of critique-- on the essay? On the TA? We lost track.

Now, Ryan goes to MIT and is technically the smartest person I know. We shared time together last week on my front porch-- tea in hand, elbows tucked between our knees as the creeping chill settled around us, recatching up and remembering all the things that hold people together even after much distance and time separates them temporarily.

Ryan and I have many memories, and the thing I love most about good friends is that they are living, breathing insurance against the forgetfullness of time. They carry pieces of our memories around for us-- the things that would slip away with our own unreliable recollections are buttressed by the minds of the people we love. And I am so thankful that little bits of my memory and heart are wandering around all over the place.