Stay Salty, I Love You 11.4.23

“Ocean City, MD – Stay Salty,” reads John’ shirt. Appreciating a fellow salt-water lover, I initiated conversation. I shared that I also have a “Salty” shirt, but mine has a ‘y’ in the shape of the crook of Massachusetts to represent Cape Cod, my home. “So every beach town has a ‘Salty’ shirt, huh?” he says, half-joking, half disappointed that Ocean City isn’t unique in its wordplay. His wife has a matching shirt, except hers has a hood.

John meets his son for coffee every weekend. If they meet on Saturday’s, they go to the 32nd Street Farmers Market. If they meet on Sunday’s, they go to the JFX market. I get the opportunity to meet his son later that morning when I go into Red Emma’s to use the restroom. He has the Story Seed his dad gave him on a keychain attached to the belt loops on his jeans. “Especially now, we’ve gotta stay connected,” John says. We do. And sometimes we’re over-connected, our social media feeds filled with snapshots from people’s lives halfway across the globe. We need to be intentional about how and who we connect with. That's why people like John's son are deleting social media. How do you stay connected across distance, then? “Go back to letter writing,” John says.

I’ve been sending lots of mail recently, lots of cookies specifically. The chai snickerdoodles are my new favorite to bake and share, because of the labor involved with rolling each cookie dough ball in the chai spiced sugar. I sent cookies to Mom and Michael to go along with a card I was forwarding to a neighbor of theirs. I took comfort in eating those same cookies, feeling connected by the knowledge that we were eating food touched by the same hands. I sent cookies and a toy Jeepney and face soap to my cousin's family, who was dealing with a family illness. I didn’t mention anything about the illness in the card. “I’m just sending these cookies as an excuse to say ‘I love you,’” I wrote. I love you I love you I love you. It’s all I know right now. It’s all I know how to say. I love you I love you I love you, sent with homemade cookies in a cardboard box.