pen to paper

I could recognize her handwriting in the dark. my grandmother’s. I can see her boxy cursive letters in my mind’s eye, and my eyes fill with tears. a birthday card, a check, the margins of her daily christian devotional. she reserved sentiment for the times she was seated with crochet in her lap. and for the ballpoint letters etched into an eggshell page. these records conjure her back sometimes faster than a photograph can because they come from her hand. they are what she made. and spelling is a spell.

that’s what The Cartographer Blue (Queen of Clubs) said: “leave a record, leave a map, leave a spiritual archive”. put pen to paper, “…so they can know where to find you…”

write in your Bibles, write in your guidebooks, write on the backs of photographs, in your journals, on your cards, pepper the margins of your life with what you saw and what you heard and what changed after. let them find you again. they’re going to miss you when you pass on.