There isn’t much to it, really: lightly toasted oats, a smattering of roasted pistachios, and sunflower kernels, studded with tart cranberries and drizzled with maple syrup and olive oil. It’s sturdy, Nordic food, nourishing in its utilitarian aesthetic. Yet each tender moment spent with it tugs upon my heart.
A small handful tossed into my mouth; sprinkled atop spongy coconut yogurt; or poured into a bowl. The sky spreading purple and magenta amidst the traces of your presence in the quiet dawn. The empty couch and tidy piles on the desk; a neatly folded towel still draped over your nice, clean sink, which I have already soiled.
You never did care much for cooking, downplaying your abilities and shrinking in the kitchen next to my stepdad and I, we who perhaps place too much importance on presentation and temperature. There’s something heartbreakingly vulnerable about these nuts and grains and shriveled fruits. Coming as you are, offering raw and honest nurturance.
You helped me take my first steps for the second time and brought it with you. So proud to show me what you’d made, like my own crude landscapes once scrawled with markers that smelled of imitation apple and bled through the page. Steadying my walker as I wobbled like a newborn fawn, timelines crossed back and forward.
One day, I will do this for you, too.
I was afraid to surrender, helpless and hamstrung in this tiny space. But you came to care for me, and by the time you left, I could stand on my own two feet.