Vox Meditantis

You ask about relationships? At eighty-nine, I’ve learned the best ones aren’t always in birthday cards. It’s the neighbour salting my steps, the river that remembers my history, and the friends who stayed when everyone else left.

Mr. Baranowski asked what colours my sports team would be. Everyone else picked their favourite clubs. I picked rust orange and Delaware blue-grey – the colours New Corinth actually is, not what developers want it to be.

At eighty-five, I’ve learnt that perfect writing spaces aren’t built – they accumulate, like silt in a river bend. My room has sloping floors, my father’s scarred desk, and windows on Minerva Creek. It’s exactly right.

My favourite car has a dented door, 247,000 miles, and an inexplicable crayon smell. It’s not the vehicle I dreamt about as a teenager, but it’s carried me through every transformation that actually mattered.