The smell of cardemom makes me want to cry. I picture being in my aunt's kitchen and the way the smells all mixed: cardemom and coffee and something cooked long and perfectly during the day. Onions and bread? I wonder if that coffee maker still sits in that kitchen, if my uncle uses it now that she's gone? I remember the yellowy stains on the white plastic of that coffee maker whose light always, always glowed red. It's a wonder the light never burnt out.

I'm teaching GED in addition to Composition classes at the community college. I love it. It's in the basement with coffee and cookies. Which is good because it's past my bedtime and I need coffee and cookies after 8:30.

I taught someone the shape of writing Monday. Some of the students need to learn how to structure writing or how to avoid a sentence fragment. Some were just kinda punks in school that have a test to take, but others... well I wonder what happened there. Others need to learn when to use a comma and when you use a period. Or how a paragraph is shaped.

What made them never take notice that the text all around them had starts and stops? Squares and chinks clipped out of the beginning of each box and spaces in places. I never took the time to notice the shape of writing. Except in poems.

I wonder what he'll teach me next.