Daily Rescue #1
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
July 19
That three sips of coffee after 2 p.m. kept my body awake past midnight, the sliver of a moon out my window enough of a reason to sit up, get up, and listen to the nocturnal mammals of summer.
That my dog and the foxes got so close last night, barked and growled—but still, a conversation.
And that, on my lunch break I pass two panting, leash-stuck huskies in the sun and say, “Poor babies—who do you belong to?” And how right then, materializing from the shadow of a cafe awning, a man appears, holding a cortado. He growls at me, "Well, that's real helpful."
Mostly, that this man’s words don't touch me, don’t move me like they used to—like an arm or how a color fills a shape. I almost don't even hear it. His anger, or whatever it is, is a leaf falling. A monarch flapping too low, across the brow. I’m on my way to the bakery to cover each plate of cupcakes in saran wrap, let the plastic fall over their frosted heads like my mother used to let fall the pink sheet of morning over our faces, pretending it was the sky. Then to go home and walk my dog; when his legs wilt and give into the earth, to feed him Jack cheese on a blanket in the shade.
The woman who comes in during the slowest hour, who is wearing the kind of silk scarves my grandmother used to wear—black and red. She asks for the polenta cake with chocolate, then whispers to me over the glass, no louder than the fan blowing, “Thank you. This is the best cake I've ever had. Thank you." I tell her that I will tell the bakers, who will tell the owner. I try to whisper this back to her, in her language, in the language of prayer—that most of the time, I have nothing to do with what I love either.
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