tomorrow is winter.

Every year in Minnesota, usually a little earlier than this, there is a period of temperate weather, the end of which is marked by torrential rain. The earthworms are swept out of the ground and onto the sidewalks, where they wriggle around for a day. Then, that night, a hard freeze comes, and the earthworms are frozen in mid-wriggle on the sidewalk.

Today is the rain.
Tonight is the freeze.
Tomorrow is winter.

the work of memory

I have an elderly friend who is in early stages of dementia.

She knows it.

Today I took some stollen (a German holiday bread that I make every year and that she really loves) and a thermos of coffee over to her, and sat for a while as she made her lists.

Every day she writes down random names and words, so that she won't forget them. She reads them as she writes them, very deliberately and sonorously. A litany of sorts.

She said my name after every other entry:

"Jenifer
oxygen
Jenifer
Patsy Cline
Jenifer
crochet
Jenifer
Wheel of Fortune
Jenifer
bleach
Jenifer
davenport
Jenifer
Jenifer
Jenifer..."

Humbling...

To be remembered.
To witness forgetting.