And I have been attending to them. Joyous occasions and grand achievements and the visits that come along with such things.

Aimee has graduated; just last week, following a picnic lunch of salad, fruit, baguette, and sunny boiled eggs —the season’s first radishes and strawberries present and radiant in their respective pinks—my mom and I helped her pack up her dorm room for the final time.

And the simultaneously chaotic and lazy visit stretched on from there. We exhausted one another, this family of neurotic little women, but we also all fit upon my bed to watch Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, being as derisive and amused as possible; we visited Taim not once, but twice for bulging sandwiches with hot sauce and those rich, herbal, crusty and tender pieces of falafel (really, very good) and french fries with saffron aioli; we rode the 1 train to South Ferry and that big orange boat into New York Harbor. On the water, on that overcast day, an unreal mist shrouded the city— suddenly an island. The Statue glowed flourescently in the gloom. I felt outside of myself, and the universe.

Things aren’t really making sense right now.

For one thing, Aimee and I should be able to eat breakfast together every day. Now that she is gone, New York seems frazzled, old, and dirty.

Small regrets have become tragedies in my mind’s eye, marked by the drama of such a short visit from ones so dear: my heart crumbles upon recalling my suggestion of eating sandwiches out (totally mediocre) for lunch on Sarah’s last day in town— she was not around for the utterly familial feasting, at home, upon roasted asparagus with shaved pecorino. (My mum & Aimee had to leave for the airport that very minute, so the asparagus were pulled out not quite as tender as one might hope; yet, still, they were fine enough for the three of us to grasp at the hot spears, slick with olive oil and lemon, with our fingers before hugs went all around.)

So, I’m lonesome. Yesterday, the sunshine did no good. The leftover roasted chicken from the Balthazar graduation dinner, with aioli, salami, and a big green salad, did not good. Dick Van Dyke on Netflix— no good. The baked rhubarb, tender and rosy, was no help. Scrubbing the kitchen floor on my hands and knees? Nope. Taking a spoon to the peanut butter? Unfortunately not.

But today, when my friends welcomed me back to work, and I found a bizarre printed-off email about talismans folded into an old book, and I made a sandwich on baguette with meaty roasted green garlic, fresh mozzarella with olive oil, lemon, chile, and marjoram— today, things started looking up. The market’s tomorrow, and there will be radishes and strawberries, and things will get better.

Maybe not less lonely, because the gap one’s family leaves in their absence is too yawning and wide; but, better. Brighter.