I made my first potato patties the other day. I tried to make them as I remembered from my mom's version of patties. I silently reviewed my recent greek lesson for beginners while I tried to clump the starch and the egg and the flour together. I added a strange mixture of spices that turned out a little too bitter (I corrected this by adding chiplote right before popping 'em patties into my mouth). Alfa, beta, efgaristo, me leme Aggiliki...greek that sounded familiar but inexorable and confusing all the same. A friend stopped by and seemed dumbfounded by my patties, laying there in the pan, ready to be eaten. Potato patties, naturally, haven't you ever seen them? So natural to me, so natural to explain them, all my memories rushing back to my mom and to Mexico and a home of a brother and a father, and sometimes agua de jamaica, that has antibiotic properties and always refreshes the palate. My friend babbled about a chocolate half eaten and another one that had 54% cacao, she had just brought them back from her latest trip, and then she left quickly, leaving a trace of something that as my greek review, seemed familiar but mystifying. And her words, and my memories, and those patties, all suddenly came together in a deep domestic feeling, streching out as an elm tree of the northeast, which throws its translucid, flying seeds right before the summer. And I had to hold tight so tears wouldn't turn into seeds, flying out of me.