_{skunk cabbage}

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This is my entry to week #3 of @ericvancewalton's mind-opening Memoir Monday initiative. For this week we've been charged to write about what we would say to future generations of ours.

Like the second week's prompt, this week's prompt gave me pause: how can I presume to know what the next generations should do? I pondered that prompt, fruitlessly, for a few days.

I could easily think of a few personal cooking tips/aphorisms, such as:

Never try to catch a falling knife.

Always wear shoes when you cook.

Wash both sides of your cutting boards.

If you have a hunch that something is wrong, something is wrong.

_coltsfoot

The above four sayings, while cutesy and true, are not the stuff a good post is made of.

So, I decided to let poetry tell my thoughts on this matter for me.

I went for a walk along a river bed, and asked the trees.

Here's what they said:

don’t stop
to smell the roses

plant roses
so that every walk of your life
is bordered by flowers

breathe and bathe in their fragrance
let your eyes and noses and ears and tongues and fingers
soothe your innards,
let your being
know the light

rejoice at the sight
of coltsfoot and skunk cabbage -
ramps are not far behind!

know that
you are not
your gender,
nor are you
your house
your family
your job
or your appearance

know that
if you do not feel beautiful
you are not being you

know that
your best efforts
will someday be erased

know that
forces that seek to control you
are everywhere -
be mindful of whom you answer to

see yourself in everyone else

the trees know,
ask them

teach your dogs
to come when called

_{and for the older women:}

always take a tissue with you
in case you have to pee

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_{images are all mine}