As I write this, it is 2:23 pm, the world is exploding, I am completely stuck on all my writing projects, my sunflowers are sagging, and it is too hot to do anything outside happily. But my house is beautifully cool—I sprang for a second AC when I got an extra gig last month—and my refrigerator is brimming with good ideas: produce from the local greenmarkets, red and white wine, seafood from Chelsea Market, butter from an Upstate friend, supplies from the old-school Italian grocery down the street. So I am cooking a crab risotto, the decline of western civilization be damned. Continue Reading →
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Grounded Mermaids, Graceful Ghosts
I withhold not my heart from any joy.— Ecclesiastes 2:10, via Anne of Windy Poplars
It was a beautiful day. Quiet, full of small satisfactions and a private melancholy that’s become a constant companion this year. I woke early—I suppose the headline would be if I had woken late—and sprang into action. Did laundry, fetched supplies at the greenmarket, made jars of iced tea from pineapple weed and mint and chamomile and ginger and hibiscus. Visited my pal at the hardware store and came home with bags of plywood and paint and gorilla tape. Coaxed one more bunch of peony buds into bloom. Organized a cupboard that had been bothering me for months.
Listened to the Hadestown soundtrack all the while—
You, the one I left behind/
If you ever walk this way/
Come find me/
Lying in the bed I made
and moved gently, gently like the beached mermaid I feel myself to be. Fear myself to be. I’m so cautious these days—afraid of reinjuring the back only recently mended through acupunk and good wishes, afraid of my selfishness and the selfishness of others. Afraid of being this ghost, floating through families and flocks of NYC peacocks, eavesdropping on conversations held and not held. Continue Reading →
The weather has been cold, damp, interminably British. I inadvertently cut off most of my mermaid hair in what I’m calling the