The Recollection of Things to Come

Before anything else — a confession.
I haven't written anything I've felt proud of in years.
Old life burned down. New life still rooting.
Waiting until the words felt worthy of the world.

But I come from a lineage of letter writers.
My grandfather at the kitchen table before dawn,
birds fed, clocks wound,
a striped Pyrex mug leaving coffee-colored rings on yellow paper,
pen in one hand, a conveyor belt of cigarettes in the other,
writing to his friends like it was the most sacred thing a morning could hold.

My father wrote to me before I was even born.
The state of the world. The state of the Yankees.
What he hoped to teach me when I arrived earthside.
I found the letter just before I turned eighteen.

Three generations who knew
some things can only be said through this form.

When I left my first marriage
I walked away with nothing but my clothes, my plants, my books.
I declared the world of my new story:
love moves mountains. Magic is real.
Epic plot twists are most welcome.

Most of us inherit our lead cast without an audition.
Fear gets the lead role.
The inner critic somehow gets the last line of every scene.
Plot twist: you were always allowed to recast.

What if love was your protagonist?
What if happiness, curiosity, generosity got top billing?
Your heart writes the words.
Intention punctuates them.

Maybe your next sentence holds a semicolon —
two complete truths held together.
The person you were; the person you're becoming.
Neither erasing the other.

And inevitably — a question mark.
The only punctuation comfortable with not knowing.
The only one that leans forward into the wild unknown.

I wonder sometimes what my daughter's memoir will say.
Will she remember my presence?
Our shared affinity for Bossa Nova and rainy days?
Will she tell the story of a mother who chose to be fully alive —
and the family structure that couldn't survive her unbecoming?

I've had to learn to love all of it.
The courage and the cost.
The parts of us we've outgrown aren't the villain.
They are the story.

Elena Garro called it los recuerdos del porvenir —
the recollection of things to come.
A memory of the future.
Because that's what stories do for each other.
They don't just inspire. They awaken.
Your story becomes someone else's memory of what's possible
before they've even lived it.

The cursor blinks like a heartbeat.
Patient. Present.
Asking only for the next letter.