The joke about Bath, Michigan, where my grandparents lived, was that it was fifteen miles and fifty years outside of Lansing, the capital city. A wooden sign painted “Welcome to the Community of Bath, Michigan” with the moniker of a Boy Scout Troop from the early 1970s was the first indicator that one was leaving urban civilization.

She grabbed the goose by the beak, straddled it between her thighs, plucked the feathers from its neck, slit it, bled it into quietude, and continued to pluck the rest of the feathers. That night we had czernina and drumsticks. 

A few years ago, I broke the top on my flour canister. Today, I compounded the error while making bread, having split the sugar canister’s lid as well. This may seem trivial, but the containers are pewter-colored metal, large enough to hold more than regular-sized containers—the kind you can’t run to Home Goods or Belk and replace. More importantly, they belonged to my grandmother.