Bonnie Bon Bon :)

(via Saturday Morning Cartoons: Baopu #15) by Yao Xiao

Ancient Persian engineers made their own freezers that kept ice cold - even during desert summers. By 400 BCE, they had perfected the ‘yakhchal,’ which are made of thick, heat-resistant materials.

They had vents to funnel breezes to an underground storage area and push warm air out the top, and ice could be brought in during winter to use for making chilled treats in the summer. 

Here’s Why You Should Take Anxiety Seriously

Crepe. 

It was the last thing I can remember thinking that day as I hugged you goodbye… When had your skin started feeling like paper?

When had I ever hugged you and not felt small? 

We’d driven out to your house on the water that afternoon to see you for your birthday, and I still clutched the Bigfoot graphic novels I’d brought for you as we hugged, the only thing I could think to get the man who had everything. Your arms felt so strange against my back then, thin and shaky, not at all the ropey muscle I was used to, but then you pulled back and called me Bones with that same impish smile and all was nearly forgotten. It was always nice to see your blue eyes by the water, so close thru those big glass doors. You spent so many years by it, so much time, I like to hope that maybe the ocean calmed you, though looking back I’m not sure anything did… 

Your eyes were grayer that day.

Susan took that picture of us in the kitchen, the last we’ll ever have, and I can’t remember even glancing at it then, though I’ve stared at it a thousand times since. I asked if we could go sit in the living room, so I could give you your present, and you nodded and led the way. We sat down in those comfy arm chairs by the window, and for a moment, your stormy eyes looked blue again.

“It’s silly.” I said of your present. 

“My favorite kind.” You replied.

I had you alone for 10 minutes then, though it sometimes feels like hours now. Maybe I’ve spent too long living in that memory, a brief moment poured over and dissected, worried thin with too much attention.

“You ok Poppo?” I asked.

“Fine kiddo. You?” 

I didn’t usually press further. I still don’t know why I did that day. 

“You seem off today… have you been going to therapy?”

“I’m doing my meetings… Still up on my AA.”

“I’m glad. I’m really proud of you… but you know your sobriety and sanity aren’t the same thing, right?”

You got quiet then. I still remember thinking your hands were shaky. 

“I can fly back and go with you if you want. Whenever you want. LA isn’t that far away, and it’s not like I’m working-“

But you shrugged it off then. Same confident smile magically appeared. Same nonchalant shrug. 

“I’m alright kiddo, promise. Work has just been stressing me out too, you know how it is. The industry…” 

You trailed off then. Another train pulled into that busy station behind your eyes. 

“Thank you though, for looking out. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

I know those weren’t the last words I got to hear you say, but they’re the last I remember so clearly. There were more conversations, more hugs and laughs… but once I left that day, we never got to speak again, even across distances. In the following weeks, there were countless games of phone tag played and birthday messages left. I still remember crying my eyes out when that old phone died a year later and took those voicemails with it, but maybe it was for the best. Maybe the universe didn’t want me to haunt myself with your ghost any more than the world already does. Everyone always seems to need me to know how much they miss you. Funny how few ask if I need to know it, if I can bear the weight of their loss too. Still surreal, having strangers want to talk at you about the hardest day of your life. Not sure I should, but I’ve gotten used to it now. I take the hugs and tell them thank you. 

It is nice to know you got that last message I sent thanking you for my beautiful birthday present, and the card that still makes me cry. You sent one back saying you were happy I loved it so much, and you’d call back soon.

And then 11 days later you were gone. I went to bed one night, and woke up in a new world the next. It’s strange, how quickly time has moved since. It crawled that day.

I’ve been asked before if I could go back, would I do anything different… If I could change our history, would I? Could I? Silly question anyways, a cruel thought experiment with no real answers, a fishing pole baited for clickable quotes in a world looking for distraction… but more often than not these days, I’m happy that was our last conversation. I wish we could’ve had a thousand more, but I’ve come to find a certain comfort in the set, solid concreteness of death. It’s heavy, its surface rough, but even after all these years it’s still there, corners smoothed by time, unmoved and still. I can’t change anything about the past, but there are so many other ways that last day could’ve gone, so many other words I could be pouring over years later…

Instead, you and I got to sit there, perched beside the quiet bay, and tell one other that they’re loved. 

For all those suffering today and everyday, for all those who have been thru loss, for everyone pouring over things said and unsaid in this all too brief and bright journey we call a life, please know that while the past is set in stone, the future isn’t. We leave our footprints across wet concrete with each passing day, so before it dries tonight while you sleep, tell a person they’re loved, even if that person is you. Reach out and offer help when you can, or ask for it when you need it.

“The only picture I have of my childhood is the picture of me in kindergarten, I have this expression on my face — it’s not a smile, it’s not a frown. I swear to you, that’s the girl who wakes up in the morning and who looks around her house and her life saying, ‘I cannot believe how God has blessed me.’ “ 

“I would jump in trash bins with maggots looking for food, and I would steal from the corner store because I was hungry, I never had any kids come to my house because my house was a condemned building, it was boarded up, it was infested with rats. I was one of those kids who were poor and knew it.” 

“I was the kind of poor where I knew right away I had less than everyone around me. We had nothing, I cannot believe my life, I just can’t, I’m so blessed. I would jump in trash bins with maggots looking for food, and I would steal from the corner store because I was hungry, I never had any kids come to my house because my house was a condemned building, it was boarded up, it was infested with rats. I was one of those kids who were poor and knew it.”

“It became a motivation as opposed to something else — the thing about poverty is that it starts affecting your mind and your spirit because people don’t see you, I chose from a very young age that I didn’t want that for my life. And it very much has helped me appreciate and value the things that are in my life now because I never had it. A yard, a house, great plumbing, a full refrigerator, things that people take for granted, I don’t.”

“I first envisioned myself as an actor after I watched Cicely Tyson in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman when I was a child.”

“It wasn’t until then that I had a visual manifestation of the target I wanted to hit, It also gave me hope for the future and a different life for myself, she helped me have a very specific drive of how I was going to crawl, walk, run from that environment.”