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Dear Flannel

15 Oct

Dear Flannel,

Delicious. Comfy. Soft. Woolly. Fuzzy. Soft. Warm. Fuzzy.

Yes, please.

Yes, even here in San Diego, yes please. (Hey! We have nights here too. It’s the desert. It cools off. And foggy mornings! We have those. I loooooove those. This morning was fantastic. And then it got hot and now it is cool and pleasant. Oh man oh man.)

I’ll take whatever you’ve got, flannel, with an extra dose of cuddly. Plus you make me think of pumpkins and hay rides (anyone know where a girl can go for a hay ride?) and corn mazes with mud and a chainsaw chasing you and Michael falling and Chris luring Sarah off into the stalks…but that’s a story for another day.

Love,

MM

Dear Franny and Zooey

13 Oct

Dear Franny and Zooey,

Where, oh where, are you?

Come home to me. I miss you– your plain white stripey cover, your beautifully absurd high-brow conversations in the bathtub, your chain-smoking pages.

Used bookstores have thousands of used copies of Catcher in the Rye– but you, oh dear Franny, dear Zooey, are such a rare find.

Light an SOS fire (made not of your pages) so I might find you.

Come home, come home, love,

MM

Edited: Ok, people, we can all calm down. Franny and Zooey has been located. Thanks for your quick response to the situation. Franny, Zooey, welcome back. I’m sorry to have put you under a much larger book that I don’t even like very much so you were obscured from my view. Please forgive me. Everyone else, go about your business. Nothing to see here….

Dear Expatriates

7 May

Dear Expatriates,

I hope your travels are going well.

I wish that you are baking good bread and eating it slowly; buying your meat, cheese, and produce at different stores along the same street on your way home; living in old building with windows that open outwards.  I wish that you are learning new curse words and listening anew to old ones spoken with funny accents; that you hear church bells ring each hour; or birdcalls sound each morning.  I wish for you new kinds of soft cheeses and a voice for yelling at futbol games and a willingness to drink your coffee black.

Learn your new country’s language and system of government and computer keyboards and twisty or straightforward streets.  Learn one neighborhood well and the feel of your bed and the sound of night, morning, and midday.

Then forgive us, reclaim us, remember how you loved American authors and holidays as a child.

Come home.  Teach us what you know.

Love,

MM

Dear Seattle

21 Nov

Dear Seattle,

Today, you are cold and crisp and bright. Today, a friend made me lunch with the contents of his refrigerator, creating a creamy, soft and cheesy tomato sauce and spaghetti, and his Queen Anne windows looked out over the meeting of Lake Union and Lake Washington. We could see parts of University of Washington, and parts of the Cascades, and parts of downtown, and parts of trees losing their leaves. His Queen Anne roommate wore a plaid shirt and played the guitar as I did the dishes, and I had a chocolate for dessert.

Today, Seattle, I went to Bauhaus, an old bookstore turned into a coffeeshop, and they have good coffee, and Top Pot doughnuts, and floor-to ceiling windows. I was meeting a new friend, for the purpose of confirming that there were reasons we couldn’t stop talking the first time we met each other, and we sat for hours. I can see the Space Needle, and we traded names and poems and books and places to drink coffee. We sat at the intersection of HipsterVille and YuppieTown, and it got dark. The man in a sparkly leopard print cardigan leaned across the table towards his boyfriend in a white prep-school pullover (two stripes across the left arm) and the one at the next table over eavesdropped when I mentioned authors. I couldn’t turn around without meeting someone’s eyes, and no one looked away. The lights changed and the bus numbers stayed the same. A pit bull came in and stayed for a while. I could look down from the second-floor loft and see into the pastry case.

That’s really all it takes.

Love,

MM

Dear Morning After

6 Nov

Dear Morning After,

I’m not sure exactly what to say. I was caught up in the excitement last night—it was dark, and the stars were out, there was music playing, and your voice sounded so calm and reassuring. You said all the right things. I didn’t want to stop to think, and even when I paused, I was too overwhelmed with emotion to think about what it meant.

Even now, when I go over what happened in my mind, things seem hazy. When I thought, I don’t know how this is going to work, I don’t know how my Heart(land) and Brain(land) can be reconciled, you said that you heard me. That you were listening. I said, It’s just been so long since I trusted a president, and you said, I will tell the truth. I thought, but we still have so far to go, we still have so much to do, what happens if we can’t do it all? What happens if you can’t live up to every promise?

And I woke up, and I looked at your picture on the front page, and I don’t care what happens next. Because you look like the same person today that you were last night, and the day before that, and that smile on your face is enough to put one on mine. And yes, I am terrified that you will be ineffective, that you will not be able to live up to your promises. You are just a man, just like every other man that has ever walked through this door. Presidents are all just men. Perhaps that’s why I wanted Hillary to win (at least it would be a change of pronoun). So what happens when it’s not the next morning, and the post-election glow wears off, and you go to Washington, and you can’t do everything? I believe you are strong enough to live through it, without a doubt, but am I? Can I go through this heartbreak again?

But somehow, I’m not sure I care. I know you’ve said some vague things, and I have yet to truly get to know you, and I should have asked what hope and change meant, how you intended to back up those sweet nothings. I know that half my family and friends think you’re more liberal, and the other half think you’re more moderate, and I am not sure, exactly, who you are. But none of that matters. Last night when I heard you speak, for the first time in a long time, I thought, I feel safe again.

And damn, you looked good then, and you look good now. So. Favorite meal? Favorite movie? (Because the last guy, I knew it was over when he said peanut butter and jelly and Austin Powers 3. No point in sticking around for the crossword there.) I’m not sure I remember how to do this. But I want to try.

I usually start with the comics, but today I think I’ll start with the front page. I’m feeling brave. How are you feeling this morning, Mr. President-Elect?

Yours,

MM

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