Dear Aunt C’s Glass Paperweight Collection,
Each one of you was a world. A galaxy of color caught in clear glass. Laid out on a highly polished hallway table.
In my memory, each one of you represented one of her hopes. Did she say that once? Maybe not.
You were beautiful. All the things she collected were beautiful.
-e.
Dear Entenmann’s Coffee Cake,
It was always a party when you were around. Well, a party that included the four of us and my Grandma, coming over for lunch after church.
But the promise of you, sitting on the counter! Wherever I stood in the kitchen I was aware of your presence, heavy and sweet, loitering with the Globe, fat as a couch cushion and bright in its Sunday funnies clothes. I knew exactly how much of your glaze clung to the inside of your box’s plastic window.
You were a decadence. You weren’t exactly your cousins, Entenmann’s Soft’ees Assorted Donuts, but they were vacation food. You were something we could have on a normal Sunday. If Grandma were coming over.
We recently found lemon bread at the grocery store – it smells like you. And it’s good. Not quite as good. But then, who is?
Thanks for the happy times,
-e.
Dear Electric Frying Pan,
Remember all the pancakes? All the goulash? And chicken broccoli surprise?
I think you cooked most of my favorite meals.
What I remember most about you was that you sat on the island, which meant that my mother (and my father, if it was pancakes) was facing us when she used you. I have an image in mind, made up of layer upon layer upon layer of images, of my mother standing sentry behind your quiet work, tipping up your lid to sneak a peek and saying “a few more minutes” or adjusting a cutlet by a millimeter with the tip of a wooden spoon.
The newspapers from the week were kept on a stool at that island, also it was a good place to sit with a snack or a little math homework.
Just wanted to say thanks for your even heat.
-e.
Dear Casey Kasem’s Top 40 Radio Show That Aired Sunday Mornings in the Boston Area,
Hey, it’s been awhile. How’ve you been? I heard a rerun of you the other day. That was strange. Because it was always so important to hear what the top songs were from that week – it was so topical, so now – and a rerun is nice, like a time capsule, but just so different from what I remember your essence to be.
Remember when Becky and I used to borrow my mom’s car keys at the church coffee hour to go out to the car and listen to the end of the countdown?
What I was thinking about when I heard that rerun was how badly we wanted to know what the top song was that week. It most likely wasn’t going to be a surprise. It was usually a song that had been steadily climbing the charts or even the same #1 as the week before – but we had to know. It was imperative. It was necessary to our lives.
And every Sunday, you were there.
-e.
Dear Barbie Dream House,
Why were your rooms so small? Barbie could barely move in them. And why an elevator? Where was Barbie’s income coming from to afford a house like that, that convertible? And the pool? I mean, I never had the pool, but my friend did and it was huge. Almost as big as the house. Such weird proportions.
I loved you so much, and yet you frustrated me every time I tried to play with you.
It was confusing.
-e.
Dear Car Phone,
Man, it’s crazy to think how far technology has come, isn’t it? You were such a big commitment and expense and had that long antennae. Now, we all have phones in our pockets all the time. The thought of not being able to reach someone is unthinkable. All in 28 years.
We got you because when I learned to drive my mom knew I would get lost. But we were under pretty strict instructions not to use you because you cost like $40 a minute or something. Similar to long distance at that time. You would never use somebody’s phone to call long distance without asking, remember that?
Anyway, Car Phone, I guess what I’ve been thinking about lately, now that my son is approaching the age of learning to drive, is that it was probably a little more than my lack of directional skills that compelled my mom to buy you. It was probably her just trying to keep the connection open. Through a super long antennae and a long, curly, phone cord.
-e.
Dear Elephant Tree,
How are you these days? Any kids in your life?
I just wanted to say something. We called you the Elephant Tree because your bark looked like elephant hide. I realize it could have been construed as derogatory (I think of the Elephant Man. And I can imagine that any time a being is compared to a being of another type it is tricky, even when it is meant as a compliment.) but I have always loved elephants. Your branches were so thick and solid and your bark so smooth and grey. You were able to hold us.
But I think why Elephant Tree seemed so perfect a name is also because you always had an air of movement about you, even for a tree of your size, as if you could slowly turn and walk away at any time but you were sticking around, patient and lovely, for all the neighborhood kids who loved to climb on you.
Hope you are well,
-e.
Dear Stacking Lead Pencil and Fancy Notebook I Got for Christmas in ’85 or ’86,
There is a feeling of sitting down with paper and pencil that is ripe and full and sweet – it is mostly promise, I think, that heady mix of hope and possibility that is a blank page. I still find that feeling often. Even just making a grocery list. A letter. An idea for a story. But what I’m missing, what I’ve been missing for 30 years, is that last percentage: belief. Certainty. Love of the story I’ve sat down to write.
I felt it when I sat with you two on the couch in the living room. The lead was so sharp! The paper so smooth. Then I was sitting down to write a story about a girl who rides a unicorn. Now I’ve decided I should be writing more serious things. I have many pencils and pens. Markers. A shed-load of notebooks. But the belief ebbed away a long time ago.
Working on getting it back.
Miss you,
-e.
Dear Stationary Aisle at CVS,
I still feel a shiver of excitement when it’s time to shop for my kids’ school supplies, but nothing, and I mean NOTHING, compares to the dizzy joy I felt standing and browsing your stacks of notebooks and Trapper Keepers. Unicorns. Kittens. Rainbows. Paint splatters. Abstract designs. Solid colors. Don’t even get me started on the Lisa Frank designs. Always college rule. Always.
No matter what the school year was going to bring and what kind of mayhem my notebooks were going to experience, you were a happy and safe place for me, grounded in the hope of clean start, year after year.
-e.
Dear Mormonson Cake,
I don’t know if you’ve heard about this but we are all on lockdown (entering week 10) and a lot of us are turning to baking to soothe our battered sense of purpose and so I am trying to bake you, Mormonson Cake. It hasn’t worked yet, and I’m not sure how much more butter and sugar I can go through only to throw the resulting chewy mess into the trash … but I am motivated.
Here’s why: my grandmother’s voice narrating the recipe as we measured out the butter, sugar, flour; the soft way “gram” is spoken in Norwegian, like a short expulsion of breath; the blue and white kitchen; the smell of coffee and bread crumbs on an old, clean towel; the cookie tins that smelled sweet even when empty.
I don’t know why you don’t work here. My mother said it was something to do with the baking powder or the flour. We could never get waffles right either.
Hope to see you soon,
-e.