Traces

When people dear to me come to visit from far away, traces remain after they leave, and these traces make me miss them more than I did before.

Right now, for example, I’m drinking my morning coffee from a mug painted with bright yellow, orange, and red flowers, a gift from my daughter Tara, who remembered that I liked colorful dishes and would not discard any that superglue could still mend. Each time I lift the cup to my lips I see my lovely Tara. Thank you.

This morning I woke to pale winter light filtering through the delicate shogi screen I had bought to replace the ugly  plastic blind. I could not reach up high enough to hang it, so it had been waiting for someone taller—for my son-in-law Al, it turned out. Thank you, Al.

On the window seat in the living room the pillows are still indented where one of you lay down to take a nap. The refrigerator is unusually tidy. The cheeses are all in the cheese drawer, the vegetables in the vegetable drawer, you found a small basket for the mushrooms from the farmers’ market that I had left in the paper bag they came in —your kitchen is  much better organized than mine and you couldn’t resist making improvements in mine.

A small piece of the salmon you baked in a lemony sauce remains, just enough to enclose in an omlette  made with a couple of the orange-yolked eggs from your chickens, with some kale from your garden.

I take the extra leaf out of the dining room table, push two chairs to the wall. The sense of you still lingers. Echoes of your voice, of our conversations. Tomorrow I will miss you less; and then, after a while, the prelude to your next visit will begin. The anticipation is part of the pleasure. I’ll decide what kind of soup I’ll cook to be ready if you arrive late in the evening and hungry. Once again the cycle will begin.