She sends me news of blue jays, frost,/ Of stars and now the harvest moon/ That rides above the stricken hills./ Lightly, she speaks of cold, of pain,/ And lists what is already lost./ Here where my life seems hard and slow,/ I read of glowing melons piled/ Beside the door, and baskets filled/ With fennel, rosemary and dill,/ While all she could not gather in/ Or hid in leaves, grow black and falls./ Here where my life seems hard and strange,/ I read her wild excitement when/ Stars climb, frost comes, and blue jays sing./ The broken year will make no change/ Upon her wise and whirling heart; -/ She knows how people always plan/ To live their lives, and never do./ She will not tell me if she cries.//

I touch the crosses by her name;/ I fold the pages as I rise,/ And tip the envelope, from which/ Drift scraps of borage, woodbine, rue.

Mary Oliver

“She knows how people plan/ To live their lives and never do.” The space between my plan and my day-to-day is sometimes great. The details often escape me. Try as I might to write things down and remember. Remembering the ebb and flow can change a broken year.

My desire to write letters sits on beautiful blank cards packed in small boxes preparing for my next move. I made a pact with myself at some point to actually send notes. That was several moves ago. The blank notes have sat quietly in my desk as the years have passed. Maybe this broken year will be the year I send notes. The notes will be a letter from home.

The grandmothers in my family knitted intricate and delicate lace doilies. The kind that my fingers can not even begin to create. I have collected them over the years. I want to mount them on black velvet, frame them, and hang them on my wall. Maybe this broken year will be the year I frame the doilies. The doilies will be a letter from home.

The plates from my childhood that hung on my wall and have broken along my path go with me, too. Wrapped in bubble wrap that has popped and frayed. I carry them with me to make to make a mosaic that celebrates the people who taught me how it feels to be treasured. Perhaps 50 is long enough to wait to remember that I am treasured. Maybe this broken year will be the year I make a mosaic. The mosaic will be a letter from home.