Grandma Elsie didn’t have email, she had homemade kolaches — a type of Czech pastry. The kitchen table was always filled with them. When I asked why, it was the same answer for why the coffee pot was always brewing, and why the back door was left unlocked — “What if someone comes over…” she said. Maybe it was the scent of the fresh baked dough that wafted through that kitchen, and so easily out the back door to the neighboring farmers, (who were all a little Bohemian when it came to desserts), or maybe it was because just like that door, that table, they knew that Elsie would indeed be open, heart even more than kitchen. 

I was listening to a podcast yesterday on Artificial Intelligence. The podcaster asked, “What makes us human?” They all agreed it was our need and our ability to connect. And if that’s true, and I believe it is, then what does it say about our current humanity when the overwhelming urge across the country is to divide? 

I don’t know when the local bakeries opened in town, but it never stopped Grandma Elsie from baking. I suppose it’s the same for me. I keep writing. I keep painting. Because what if someone does come over — I mean what if someone looks at my feed, my page, my books, my paintings, my home, my studio, into my face, into my heart…what will they see? 

I barely know how to spell kolache…I had to look it up. So I painted a sign on the door of my studio, hoping the message would and will still waft to those who need it — hoping it finds its way to the ones wandering, those looking for a safe, and possibly even delicious, place to land — offering a worn kitchen chair to rest upon, and a heart wide open. 

We’re not that different. We need each other. Perhaps we could all be a little more like Elsie, a little more human.