(This micro-essay, was written during a series of community writing sessions I taught as part of the Neighbors Project pandemic reflection/writing project collaboration between the Anchorage Daily News and Anchorage Museum. It was originally published in Chatter Marks, the Anchorage Museum journal.)
“Prescription”
May 26, 2022
I want you to go to the old lilac bush in your yard and clip five blossoms — ones that are about to open — and gather them in an old spaghetti sauce jar and put them on your neighbor’s porch.
When you drive down the alley behind your house, I want you to lift the two fingers at the top of your steering wheel and nod when someone pulls over to let you through.
When you see an elder outside Carrs, sitting on her walker, waiting for a cab, I want you to check the time and if you have it, offer her a ride.
I want you to ask your mail carrier’s name and remember it.
I want you to consider the ways you might be wrong.
I want you to take your kid to hear their favorite band. I want you to get them the t-shirt.
I want you to notice the talents of quiet children — the ones that know how to pass a soccer ball during a game, who help the younger ones buckle in, who don’t complain about breaking their cookie and giving away the big half.
Your friend, the one who lost her mother 17 years ago, I want you to remember the grief she carries when you complain that your mom only talks about four subjects now. I want you to put her mother’s birthday in your calendar.
And your oldest friends, the ones who know where you went to Sunday school and that you didn’t get elected class president, who posted photos of their family dressed in neutral hues in a grassy field at sunset, the ones who make real money, who in your darkest moments, you suspect feel a little sorry for you, I want you to remind yourself too much time has passed for you to hear their inner dialog now, and none of us gets through this life easy. We’re all just making our way.