A Plain Girl

There are endless ways to connect:
people to bake for,
gifts to give,
places to visit,
parties to throw,
friends to call,
photos to send.

The surface skin thins and the earth cracks under the weight.
Because once I told my daughter that she was many things to many people:
a sister
a niece
a granddaughter
a cousin—
Overwhelmed, she replied, I’m just a plain girl.
We all laughed at what she didn’t understand and at what she did.

The moment in the kitchen 
after you chopped the carrots into tiny squares, the whites and greens of leeks, the pungent eye-watering onions for me to mix into the lentils simmering in olive oil
how the tomatoes released their mouth watering tanginess.
After I stirred and salted, 
the lentils softened.
I took a spoonful to share
and lifted the ladle to your lips for you to taste
what we had made.
A concoction of trail runs in the dark and in the rain and under gloriously cerulean skies and all the conversations about plant life and pain and faith—art and books and the creative process and prayers at the top of Mt. Baldy behind which the red sun rose—
A connection like that only happens when you allow yourself to be
a plain girl
with space and time
to be nothing other than what you are
with someone courageous enough
to be the same.