Dick “Tater” Titsworth wondered what it might feel like to drive into a tree. A sturdy tree like an ancient oak or sequoia that could take the hit without much noticing. Just another day in its seemingly endless 628-year-old life of conversing with other trees through complicated but exceedingly efficient fungal networks that ran beneath the ground. He would have to gauge just the right speed though. He’d need to go slow enough to keep the tree from sustained injury, but fast enough to ensure his ending rather than render him a drooling vegetable. He sighed. The whole plan already felt like too much work. Tater was never one much for plans. Or work. Nope. He’d need something more spontaneous.

So he pondered instead driving off the edge of a craggy, rocky cliff. Aside from the logistical problem that he knew of no such cliff, he was concerned about the flora and fauna that may suffer as a result of his actions. Driving off a bridge might be better. There was no shortage of bridges dotting greater Longbottom County. But Tater didn’t much care for water. And anyhow, the amount of time in flight from a cliff or a bridge would certainly be enough to make him regret his choice. By then, it would be too late. That was just a shitty deal. And Tater was no stranger to regretful choices that resulted in a shitty deal. He had plenty of proof of this.

There was the mortgage he took out on the leaky trailer that smelled of mold and that he called home. There were the track marks winding up and down his arms and a few scars between his toes. There was the estranged ex-wife and son who lived across the country and wanted nothing (except alimony) from him. And there was the new wife he wished were estranged but was instead ever-present; systematically breaking him down with unkind words that rivaled those of his mother.

Perhaps instead he could just turn around and drive to the carnival that recently set up on the edge of town. It was a pathetic old affair with rickety rides that had always been deemed death traps. Yet despite their being repeatedly assembled and disassembled by sundry fentanyl addicts with pocket wrenches, carnival fatalities were surprisingly low. He shook his head. The odds weren’t good he’d meet his maker that way. And while poor odds hadn’t stopped him from gambling away his house and car five years ago, he felt certain he was a changed man now. A better man. The type of man who was considerate enough to burden the world no longer with his presence. His father had been right all along when he accused his young son of breathing air that was meant for someone who belonged here. A person who mattered. And yet…

Tater couldn’t find it in himself to end it all. Not yet. He needed to stay around long enough to vote in the next election. He wasn’t going to be posthumously accused of being a bad American. He was a good American, after all. His vote could make a difference in his son’s life. Even if he couldn’t personally be there to show him the ways of the world. Thus he would cast his vote for a great American man; a genius of the most stable nature; a hero who would get the country back on its feet and provide a brighter future for his son. Sure, Tater had made some bad decisions in the past and gotten some raw deals. But who hadn’t? This time he knew he was onto something big. Something real. And it felt good, dammit! As he drove into the parking lot of the Planned Parenthood clinic with his ‘End Aborsion Now’ sign (and zero awareness of the misspelling on it), he waved to the other demonstrators and smiled for the first time in nearly a week. 

Things were looking up.

Daisy and Max sit at the burnished oak table in the breakfast nook where they’ve convened nearly every morning for the past six years. Just like every other preceding morning, the booth seats creak beneath them as if to complain of their aching joints that they don’t actually possess. And their neighbor’s dog howls the same eerie song he did the day before, and the day before that, and the day before. Even so, something about this morning is different. They both sense it.

“I think it might be working,” Daisy says, glancing at Max over her large coffee mug which is filled to the brim with Earl Grey tea. The citrusy bergamot scent stirs her imagination – which until recently has fallen dormant. She’s surprised. Though not entirely.

Max nods in agreement as she sips on her beverage of choice – Turkish coffee. She drinks from a large mug too. In her case, however, the coffee coats only the bottom of the mug with an inch of black sludge. She also feels a stirring she hasn’t in a very long time. It’s glittery. And magical. 

The coffee mugs were a Christmas/Hanukkah gift from Daisy’s daughter, Heather. They are sturdy vessels that widen at the bottom so as not to tip over easily. 

Not unlike Heather, Max thinks to herself. 

Each mug has a saying. “I’m sorry for what I said before I had my coffee” blazons Daisy’s vessel. This is ironic, if not short-sighted, given that Daisy rarely drinks coffee. Meanwhile, Max’s mug states, “My java lets me espresso myself,” a saying which makes Max cringe and roll her eyes every time she pulls it down from the cupboard. When Heather bought these mugs for them last year, she thought they were “so clever and so funny!” Heather means well, Max reminds herself. Again.

Daisy and Max only use Heather’s mugs when their favorite beverage containers are in the dishwasher. And this morning, they are. The truth is, Daisy doesn’t much care for sayings on her drinkware. It’s a point about which she’s been emphatic in the past. She much prefers her hand-painted clay mug with the bright floral pattern that she got when she was in Oaxaca. Or the handmade ceramic cup emboldened with whimsical swirling geometric shapes in a variety of colors which her husband (and Heather’s father) brought back from India in 1974. Max, by contrast, IS a fan of drinkware verbiage. The problem is, her sense of humor is more subversive than Heather’s. As such, she leans into sentiments more along the line of, “Shhhhh… No one cares”, or “Because fuck you, that’s why.” She gives Heather credit for trying though.  

“Sienna said if we stayed committed to the practice, this would happen,” says Daisy, taking the spoon from her tea. She lifts it in the air and looks at the concave reflection of the rising sun outside the window. She smiles as she imagines shimmying about that impossibly inverted image.

“It makes sense we might start getting somewhere with it by now,” Max says, leaning back into her chair. The dishwasher purrs and whirs as it completes its rinse cycle. “I thought it was bullshit at first,” Max shakes her head. “I really did.”

“I know you did,” Daisy says, turning to glance out the window at the dog next door. She waves to him. “I’ll admit now,” she says turning back to Max, “I was skeptical.” She looks over at the dishwasher and suddenly imagines a world of small and colorful beings inside scrubbing away, singing, and dancing. Little beings that could only exist in the darkness of the closed door of the dishwasher and that would employ their secret safety cloak of invisibility when the door opened. It feels entirely feasible.

At that same moment, Max bolts up, goes to the cookie jar, grabs a handful of cookies, and crushes them into her Turkish coffee. She then proceeds to eat her coffee cookie sludge with Daisy’s otherworldly spoon. 

Daisy, who thinks nothing of Max’s action, smiles at her with wide eyes. “Good?”

“Amazing!” Max laughs. “All these years I’ve always been such a coffee purist. Look at what I was missing.”

Daisy nods. “I just had this vision of little people in there,” Daisy points to the dishwasher.

“Huh?”

“Little people in there. In the dishwasher. They’re invisible to us but they clean our dishes.”

“Hmmmmm. Could be.” Max also turns to look out the window and notices the neighbor’s dog. She snaps her fingers and looks back at Daisy. “I bet they have pets.”

“Yes!” Daisy leans back and claps her hands. “Yes! Little tiny dogs and cats.”

“And tortoises! Little tiny tortoises,” Max squeals, then with a very serious look leans into Daisy and says, “I’ve always wanted a tortoise.” 

Daisy cocks her head to the side, purses her lips, then pulls them to the side. “They live a really long time though,” she says thoughtfully. “So maybe not the best idea.”

Max ponders. “I could get one that’s already 120 years old.”

Daisy raises her eyebrows and points to Max. “THAT could be our quest for the day!” She giggles. 

Just at the moment, Heather walks into the kitchen. “Good morning! I hope I’m not interrupting. I’m dropping off those coloring books you were asking about, Mom,” she says, plunking them down on the oak table. “You said they were for the kids at the daycare down the street.”

“No interruption, darling,” Daisy says, kissing Heather on the forehead, then turning to Max with a knowing look. “Max and I were just talking about what we should do with our day.”

“Oh! I see you’re using the mugs I got you!” Heather smiles and then begins laughing. “Espresso yourself. That’s classic.”

Max smiles politely. 

“Hey,” Heather says. “If you’re heading to the senior center, I can drop you off there.”

“No, thank you, we’re going to…” Daisy begins and just as she’s about to share their plan, Max shoots her a glance. It advises against her giving her daughter any more information. Because Heather would likely deem their plan to pursue an ancient tortoise in Southern Florida as insanity, head straight home, and begin to search out ‘facilities’ for them. She wouldn’t understand. Most people wouldn’t understand. Or even believe it. 

A few months ago, Daisy and Max had not believed it themselves when they met Sienna who told them that there was a method, a practice that would infuse them with the magic of childhood again. It didn’t involve drugs or require them to do anything against their will. She promised them that the practice was deceptively simple and that absolutely everybody could do it. The most difficult thing to achieve was the ability to believe in it. That was where the practice came in. Once that was established, the rest would fall into place. Yes, she sounded like a crazy woman.

“On second thought,” Daisy says, “perhaps we’ll take that ride to the senior center after all.”

“Good plan,” says Max. “Then we can pick up the center’s bus to the beach.”

“Oooh! The beach!” Daisy yells excitedly. Heather, squinting her eyes and furrowing her brow, regards her mother suspiciously. Daisy clears her throat and gathers herself. “Yes. The beach sounds like a nice idea.”

“Oooooookay,” Heather, suspicion still etched on her face, looks over at Max, then back at her mother. Her face softens. “Great. We can go whenever you’re ready.”

“We’re just about ready,” Daisy says, ushering Heather out of the kitchen and toward the door. “We just need to gather a few essentials and we’ll be right out.” She returns to the kitchen with a big smile. “Know what we could do at the beach?”

“I’m guessing that looking for a 120-year-old tortoise there is off the table,” Max says,

“Afraid so,” Daisy says. “But we could build a sand castle.”

Max’s eyes brighten. “And maybe we’ll see some sea turtles!” she says excitedly. “And the castle we build could be a safe haven for the little ones that are going to hatch soon. You know? Because they have to make that long trek to the ocean?”

Daisy smiles. “Love it.”

A look of concern crosses Max’s face.

“What?”

“It’s been a long time since I built a sand castle,” she says. “I mean, a really long time.”

Daisy smiles at her.

“What if I don’t know how to do it anymore?”

“Let’s just see what happens, yeah?” Daisy says, gently taking Max’s hand as they start walking through a cloud of fairy dust toward Heather’s car. “Because I’m just feeling like anything is possible.”

“Anything?”

“Anything at all.”

Today, I have cobalt sadness and persimmon anxiety. 

I have clunky depression and prickly frustration.

I have nagging dull pain and odd fluttering sensations.

I have no uplifting energy, yet no ability to surrender to delicious relaxation.

I have regrets about crooked missteps. 

I have a colorful history of crooked missteps.

I have wavering hearing loss in one ear that goes in and out like my breath. 

Yet, I do have my breath. 

And I have moments of sweet release.

I have the chance to soak in the buttery sunlight pouring through my window.

I have cats with endearing expressions and impossibly soft fur. 

I have a husband with these same qualities, except he has hair. 

I have seen the first orange-breasted robin of spring. 

Actually, I have seen the first ten of them.

(I have to remind myself, it’s not a competition.) 

I have a tribe, though small, that gets me.

And I have to admit, that’s HUGE.  

Still, today it feels a lot like I have nothing.

And sometimes that’s just what I have to feel for a little while. 

So I have given myself… permission.