Here is a little piece I wrote at a workshop last weekend. I thought more about writing than love when I jotted it down, but upon re-reading, I think it fits both. 

~*~

If anyone has the recipe for this, it is hand-written and stained with coffee, milk, flour, chocolate, grease.

The words are smudged nearly beyond recognition. You simply need to watch your

mother, grandfather, uncle, sister, cousin

cook. 

See his hands measure out ingredients. Watch the delicate muscles in her wrists flex as she stirs. Smell the aroma of flame meeting food, hear the sizzle and splash, feel the smoothness or lumpiness, taste the raw underdone or burnt to a crisp results. Get yourself elbow deep in the perfection of creation.

Then, your

granddaughter, niece, cousin, grandson, neighbor

will ask you to write down the recipe for the glorious dish you shared.

And you will think, there isn’t one.

It’s not a recipe, after all. It is a story, an adventure, a tall tale, a wish.

Don’t worry, you say. Just go into your kitchen, and play.