Corporate Surprise

Dear Sports Car Driver Guy,

It was one of those moments when I set aside my
"I only drink coffee from independent coffeehouses"
cappuccino connoisseur hat and
pulled into the drive-thru at Starbucks

Dogs in the back of the station wagon
ready for our morning hike
I pulled in for a little
they call it tall
foamy vanilla latte
then almost pulled right out
poorly planned parking lot
cars all mashed in a line
some stuck in their spots until
some other drive-thru caffeine fiend
budged

You were parked
trying to reverse and, I thought, leave.
So I reversed, freeing up some car claustrophobia
making space for you but instead
you pulled into the line
right in front of me.

I didn't care, I totally didn't care, and for a second
I wondered why until I remembered
I was headed for a hike with my
two marvelous dogs
I have a baby growing inside my
healthy womb
I have a world class partner and our town has
a phenomenal farmer's market and
my family and friends really, really love me and
even when I'm broke I feel rich in the most important ways
what on Earth was there to be bothered about?

You revved up your sporty engine every time you
advanced in the line.
I snickered and pulled out my ATM card knowing
even when I'm low on dough, it is always
worth spending my last few bucks on coffee.

The perky girl at the window handed me my coffee
with a lid, which I removed as I always do
I can't stand plastic between me and my coffee
and she said
"The guy in front of you
bought your drink today."

A Safe and Friendly Universe

Dear Bike Nerd,

I was having lunch with a friend and his baby boy
crunchy Romaine and thin sliced red onions
in the shade until the sun moved
heavy on my shoulders
pushing us back
out into the day again

My creamy key lime commuter bike Felicia
rested steady on the sidewalk
locked up, graceful
awaiting another spin in the June breeze

You left a note on my handlebar
must have stood admiring
her rear internal hub
or her fine whispering hue
her way of moving you even
as she stands
motionless

Yes I ought to replace those pedals soon.
But if I had done so already,
I might've missed your
cafe sleeve reminder that we live
in a safe and
friendly universe

Thank you,
Jessica

Dear Med, the Mother of my Love, on Your Birthday

Tomorrow is your birthday and you 
across the globe in Sweden
are on our minds.
I haven't met you yet but you are celebrated
every day in our home
I can see your face in your son's face
gentle, noble 
lines of a life rich with feeling and smiles.


On our wall in black and white photos
you hold him on a sailboat
a comforting mother and
her infant whose yawn looks the same 39 years later.


As we celebrate your birthday
5,200 miles away
I want to share with you what
I imagine would be 
some of the best words a mother
could hear, things you already know
but still land with softness and light your day.


Your son is as kind and thoughtful, as loving and honest,
as playful and open-minded, as accepting and sweet
as free-spirited, patient, and confident
as I imagine a man could be. 
He rides his bike every day, he makes music and 
teaches himself new things, he cooks beautiful food
for us, often in celebration of his native land
juniper berries ... elk meatballs.
He loves his dog and mine, our home, 
and has influenced me to switch 
from daily coffee to daily tea.
I've met no one who knows him well and doesn't find him
to be one of the most wonderful people alive. 

Hjalmar Carl Henrik Hake, May 2012

For all the love you've shown him 
all his life, 
for the respect he has for women 
which surely
has a lot to do with you
for the safety you instilled in him 
as a baby
and beyond
I am in gratitude and celebration 
for you.


Happy Birthday Med!


Love,
Jessica

Dear Sun Shining Through the Windows at Tin Roof Bakery

Dear Sun Shining Through the Windows at Tin Roof Bakery, Where Lots of People Turn Away From You Even When it's 36 Degrees Outside and Move to Another Table Because You are So Bright, but I Sit Straight-Smack in the Aim of your Piercing Fire Hoping They Never, Ever Put Up Blinds to Block Your Intensely Gorgeous Heat and Light,


I love you. 


Jessica

To the Girl Outside the Variety Show

Dear Amber,


You're that girl with the genuine face
standing outside the show tonight
your cheeks chilled by the bitter valley fog 
of winter
your eyes crisp in the glow of a 
dark December sky


You stopped me
to tell me
you like my art
in that go-out-of-your-way way
like a child, full of courage
"I really mean it..."


Oh, I thought, that's right
my art
I do have an art
it was like being caught playing clueless 
by a familiar old messenger
an owl who'd been watching me pretend
not to love what I do


You're that voice inside my head that
never stops cheering
sustained by the joy it finds in 
helping me remember 
the gift I came here to live 


You're that girl, you are
for me and for the art that lives inside
and I can't help but wonder
where to buy the soundtrack of 
your soul


Love,
Jessica

Dear Chico's Arms

Dear Chico's Arms, 


You reached out to me when I was 18, your creeks strung across the valley.
Blue oak. Red bud. Sycamore. Salmon.


I walked over your bridges and my heart spoke an easy "Yes."


Those college days were just a taste, a lick off the top of a Shubert's 
Chico Mint melting ice cream cone

Humboldt Park, artist: Gregg Payne

I graduated, my family came
"What a cute town..."
"This is a bubble world..."
"What do people do here, just sit on their porches all day long and socialize?"


Somedays, yes.


You didn't want to let me go and 
I resisted too, and then
San Francisco called. There's work there. I had to go.


Your arms rested, warmed by the hot valley sun, your hands dangling in the branches of almond trees, gray squirrels tickling your belly. Your arms are patient arms. 


And in between them lies a womb more fertile than any I know on Earth. I came back to you, fell in love 30 miles north in the cold Sacramento River current, and I missed you. The night sky was brighter there, your small-city lights tumbling on a navy blue blanket, dulling the radiance of stars. But in my heart, I longed for the human spirit lights, the Chico community, a tribe more starlit from within as any I've seen on Earth. 


Some say there's a giant magnet under Chico. 


Years passed and you welcomed me back to a sanctuary home, sycamore limbs cradling my nighttime breath, Little Chico Creek singing prayers around the dinner table. 

And I'd stay there, in and out for years, true to my fluttering gypsy soul, tucked in and held by you. Chico. Valley town, soil rich, rice fields in rain land of entrepreneurs giant wind chimes, earth-loving beer makers, MaMuse harmonies, bike touring adventurists. Chico. "Little boy." College town.

Your arms are so rich, and they cannot offer the ocean. Fertile river mud, not sandy salt kissed air. So I left again and frolicked in a crisp ocean way, southern sunny heaven. 


And as the mist filled my joyful heart as I slept in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, you held space for newborn Buddhas, one after another, seed by seed soaked in full sun, filling your fields. I could hear their giggles from afar, and so, one day, with no clue why, I came north again. 


And until today, I've never known the sound of stillness as it curls up in my lap, purring, soft like silky peach fuzz, eyes like crystal. We blend together beneath this giant wind chime, as summer turns to fall.


Your playmate, 
Rio

Note to a 3-year-old Friend

Dear Graciela,

Today I had the
really, if I think about it,
unfathomable blessing of spending
three hours with you
you who came through two of
the dearest friends life's given me
Nicholas and Emily

Graciela at 7 months

All of what you came to share
would splinter specks of light
to fill a thousand suns
and blind me
in this moment
if I looked

As it stands, the way you ask
"Tia can I wash dishes with you?"
at three, pulling up a chair
beside me at the sink,
soaping up the small plastic yellow spoon
"Tia can you hold this so I can rinse?"
"Be careful with Mommy's glass..."

Shy with hellos and goodbyes
you say "I'm here"
with your eyes
and tell the truth when
Mama comes home from her new haircut
blue feather braided into black hair
"Mama I can't see it!"

Truth from a 3-year-old's soul
three just on Earth
this time around
Infinite, by all other means

I assure you, passionate little angel
what you came here to
teach us, your parents, passersby, me
is being heard.

Our hearts sometimes shudder with the sound
as you shake our comfort zone reality
with the wisdom of beyond our eyes
and sometimes it will seem like
nobody is listening
our heads so far perched above
the child's
perfect presence horizon

But I promise
on some level
Your love is landing
voice of a dream bird
singing our dream song
Young friend,
your love is landing.

-Tia