Parcelled Heart

What I miss:
All Betsies, OBs especially, Terese, Sally, Tyler, Lydia, Evie...
Our collective library
Our bustling, smelly, chaotic kitchen
Sitting on the filthy kitchen floor with mason jars of wine and talking
Our front porch
Sitting on the ash-encrusted front porch with mason jars of wine and talking while listening to someone play the accordion, the guitar, sing
Beer worth drinking
Five Points
Seeing someone I know on every corner
Public transportation
Biking and bike lanes
Flying through downtown as fast as humanly possible, red lights, green, who cares
The smell of rain on the mountains
Potlucks with quirky punks
Intellectual conversation
Being unable to scandalize anyone, or at least having to work very hard at it
Tempeh, miso, curry, tamari, baba ghanoush, mochi... and other such foreign luxuries
Lavish pommes de dumpster: chocolate, kumquats, biscotti, bottomless boxes of cinnamon. You know.

What I am glad to have again:
The spontaneity and general disorderliness of my family. For example. Yesterday, my mom, uncle, and the seven kids between them decided by vote of cheering to take the fishing boat to Medina Lake. Kaleigh and Jason both have dogs that they wanted to take. But there wasn't room, highlighting the fact that, actually, there wasn't room on the boat for nine people in the first place, as it is only a four person boat. We all crammed into the pick-up and helped my grandfather mob some cattle into a trailer. Then we were hot and REALLY wanted a swim. So we drove to the Baptist Encampment on the Frio. When we arrived, despite (most of us) being Baptists, they wouldn't let us in. Maybe the screaming of the children. So we drove to Garner, but they wanted six dollars a person and no one had money. Finally we arrived at Utopia City Park around five. By chance our old friends the Hailes were also there for a swim. We caught up, swam together and played diving games until the light was gone, though the water was low and full of creepy weed things shivered by huge fish. Then we all went for buttermilk pie. I suspect this sort of thing is why we are not wealthy, and why we are so much fun, which is better anyway.
Animals and their irrepressible life: cows and calves, chickens and eggs, cats and kittens, dogs and puppies, birds and their songs, horses, snakes, bees, spiders, soodies, goldfish, perch, carp, ants, dragonflies, herons, crawdads
Knowing the names of trees: cypress, pomegranate, pecan, live oak, magnolia, mesquite, palm, acacia, peach, guajilla, sinisa, butterfly, chinaberry, ficus, hackberry
Garden I don't have to work years for: squash (I ate no less than three burly forearm-sized squash yesterday), sweet corn, blackberries, watermelon, peas, tomatoes, grapes, onions, sunflowers, dewberries
Kids and old folks (in equal parts and in moderation)
My grandpa: "What are you doing, grandpa?" "Just holdin' this chair down." To one of the kids, "Goddamnit! You could tear up a steel ball with a rubber hammer!" "Sure, and a blind hog finds an acorn every now and then, too." More of these to come.