I wrote about living with grief this summer. I’ve been jotting down what I could throughout the fall, too. I haven’t been able to shape it into a whole essay yet — it’s more piecemeal, as the experience of my grief itself has become a little more piecemeal, the dough Continue Reading
wish list
Hello my dears! Are you wondering what to get me for Christmas (or Solstice or belated Hanukkah)? Here is what I would like: a memory. I would love it if you would tell me something you remember about Val. Or about Val and me, or Val and you, or you Continue Reading
Day of the Dead
Nelson Mandela died yesterday. Here is a thing: nowadays, when I read that someone has died, I am noticing that I react with almost a comfortable sense of kinship. Not kinship with the mourners, but with the person who died. As if the dead person and I, we went to Continue Reading
a poem I read to Val
My dears, In the last weeks of Val’s life, someone from her meditation group shared a poem with her. She described it to me, briefly with her brief breath, and I sat in the bed next to her spelunking the internet with my phone until I found the right thing. Continue Reading