"This Reminds Me" by Margot Stillings

I make egg salad on my lunch break. This reminds me of Saturday lunches with my grandmother in her rose garden. I sing Pat Benatar in the kitchen. This reminds me of the summer I learned to ride my bike in the driveway of our apartment building. I smell vanilla and sandalwood incense waft across the empty room. This reminds me that I haven't felt your beard yet this year. I water my weary succulents. This reminds me of the clarifying conversation we had in the parking lot at Lowe's. I listen to wasps buzz overhead in the hammock with my eyes closed -- trusting. This reminds me of falling through the clouds and landing tenderly on uncertainty. I can hear my son's heart beating through his rib cage and vibrating his skin on the gurney. This reminds me that my heart did beat before your exodus, and it still beats in the apocalypse of our lacerated lives. I notice that Sumos are on sale at the supermarket. This reminds me of my great-grandmother Stillings asking my mother to take a single banana back to the market because it had a bruise on it. I put away my daughter's books off her messy bedside table. This reminds me of the summer I pretended to work at the library so I could have the company of books in the stacks. I write stories every day. This reminds me that I am your treasure chest, and you are my captain, and this is just a part of the voyage where we float apart.

Margot Stillings is a storyteller, photographer and cocktail napkin poet. She resembles a housecat most days: paws bare on hardwood floors and lounging in sunbeams.