There is this time during the peak of summer in Missouri, when the air is balmy and layered with sweltering humidity, you feel as if you’re inhaling glue.

Thirty minutes worth of chest compressions. Then I saw a sterile sheet. I thought it was her at first, to be honest. I watched all of this through the window of the stair well, where I can see directly into the frame of the apartment. I tried not to look during this series of an unfortunate event…

I could hardly unload and unpack them before they told me to go get more. After about thirty trips a day, in 8 hours with NO HELP, this was extremely taxing and my fingernails would turn black from all of the skin of the fruit and every single person I handed the free fruit to would complain it wasn't good enough. THEY WOULD COMPLAIN.

We had eggs Benedict (endearingly referred to as “red flannel” eggs Benedict) with beets & corned beef on top, buckwheat blueberry pancakes and black coffee with my old boat friends and we kept knocking stuff off the wobbly legged table and bursting into laughter.

My grandmother passed away my senior year in high school and she had a sage, velvet lined jewelry box with a ballerina in it who is reflected in an oval mirror. You would wind the key in the back and the ballerina would twirl in a haunting like pirouette to the clinking song that was probably a famous ballet piece.