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This Woman’s Work

October 30, 2017 in Cat Lady Matters, Quoth the Raving

We cannot get from anyone else the things we need to fill the endless terrible need, not to be dissolved, not to sink back into sand, heat, broom, air, thinnest air. And so we revolve around each other and our dreams collide. It is embarrassing that it should be so hard. Look out the window in any weather. We are part of all that glamour, drama, change, and should not be ashamed.–Ellen Gilchrist

They Shoot Jewish Witches, Don’t They?

October 28, 2017 in Book Matters, Cat Lady Matters, City Matters, Country Matters, Essays

Last night I had dinner at a Truro restaurant, and encountered the particular strain of New England xenophobia that inspired me to leave the region decades before.

It annoys me that I feel compelled to report on what occurred. Soon I must jump back into my ADHD life in New York, and expending precious writing time on this topic feels like a microcosm of how our predator-in-chief siphons our energy by making it all about his ugly heart rather than the huge issues he should be managing. But that’s the thing, isn’t it? The hatred lurking everywhere in American life is leaping to the surface because it’s been endorsed at the top.

So here’s what happened. I had had an almost perfect day before that dinner. By 1 pm, I had written 3,000 words of a book section that had been giving me trouble. Then I’d headed over to the Provincelands, an extraordinary stretch of the Cape Cod National Seashore comprised of dunes and forests and ancient, still-inhabited shacks. I walked for miles in this extrarrestrial territory—all sand mountains, barreling blue sky, trees stubbornly growing sideways. I was dressed how I most like to dress—a loose skirt and trenchcoat, barefoot and pigtailed—and could not stop smiling. It was the first bright day all week, and I was fucking happy. Continue Reading →

Scene from a Hermitage

October 19, 2017 in Cat Lady Matters, Country Matters, Spirit Matters

There was a time when all my blog posts were about quietly shuffling in my kitchen, stirring something on the stove while permakitten Grace wove in between my legs and the city blinked right outside my window. Then my life exploded along with the country, and an urgency replaced any peace I harbored. Truro has restored my calm. I had a mediocre writing day and was late to both sunrise and sunset. But I caught the last vestiges of both, and the glory of autumnal Cape Cod held me like a beloved child. Tonight I am cooking with ingredients gathered from farmstands and my finely feathered city: lamb and lentil stew with kale, cilantro, cumin, and hot-hot sauce swiped from Modern Pilgrim’s prodigious collection. I’m sipping red wine while Stevie croons so sweet and the stars are blinking brighter than NYC. I know where I am if not where I’m going, and will sleep and eat and drink so well. For now, this is enough.

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy