14.

Feeling Full

I spent most of Easter Sunday in the wilderness with Katie, Matt, and two Russian strangers, Alina and Zeb. The moment Zeb opened his mouth it felt like Easter. He could be a Salsman, John Salsman in particular, from both the sound of his voice and the bizarre information that he is all the time inserting into conversations. All day, no matter where we were or what we were doing, I felt like I was sitting between John and Uncle Tommy at the dinner table.

Alina and Zeb are visiting from Chicago, so we all drove up Mt. Lemmon for a little Easter hike. I’m full of cuts and bruises (typing is excruciating with the thorn wound on my right index finger) from scrambling up rocks. Me and Matt were fighting about which of us would win the Rock Scrambling Olympics and I was sure that I was the clear winner, but then he did this flying leap from one rock to another that basically stopped time, thus sealing his victory.

On our hike I learned that Matt donated his plasma twice a week so that he could afford to visit Katie when they were separated during college.

For dinner we made pierogies from scratch—okay, Katie made pierogies from scratch. I tried to make a Betty Crocker strawberry cake with fun-fetti frosting, but it turned into a horrible pile of hot pink goo.

And now I’m stuffed, happily full of handcrafted pasta pockets and doomed cake. I missed my family every moment but was happy to be part of a group of people who were busily trying to create a sense of home.