My name is Samin Nosrat,  and I'm a writer and a cook.

Today I'm going to read  "Elegy" by Aracelis Girmay. I chose this poem because  from the first time I read it,  it just struck my heart with  its beauty and its sadness.

And I'm processing a lot of grief right now. I suspect that a lot of us are. And it's something I just find myself returning to over and over again to find solace in,  so hopefully you will, too.

What to do with this knowledge that our living is not guaranteed? Perhaps one day you touch the young branch of something beautiful. & it grows & grows despite your birthdays & the death certificate, & it one day shades the heads of something beautiful or makes itself useful to the nest. Walk out of your house, then, believing in this.

Nothing else matters. All above us is the touching of strangers & parrots, some of them human, some of them not human. Listen to me.

I am telling you a true thing. This is the only kingdom. The kingdom of touching; the touches of the disappearing, things.