They haven’t gotten smaller in any absolute sense. They’ve become more manageable — a different thing, the difference between a weight that hasn’t changed and a person who’s gotten stronger. I’m getting stronger, slowly, the only way it happens — by doing the work, because the work is what you have.
The notebook sits on my nightstand now. I read a page or two most evenings before sleep, the way some people read scripture, hunting for the part that applies to today. Some nights I write in the margins. Some nights Lily’s already been there ahead of me, a small note in the handwriting of a ten-year-old learning to make stock, to let bread rise, to know when things are done.
Estelle wrote: if you are reading this, I hope you needed it.
I needed it.
I’m still reading it.
I think I’ll be reading it for a long time.
Which, given everything, seems exactly right.
The elm trees outside are bare now.
Come spring, they’ll be green again — not a promise anyone made, but something I’m counting on all the same.
That’s where I am.
Counting on the green.
That’s not nothing. For where I started, that’s quite a lot.
Estelle would understand that. So would Albert.
I think they’d both be glad.
And so, in a quieter way than I would once have thought possible, am I.
