Doorways have always intrigued me—in-between spaces that hold the promise of something . . . different. This doorway looks as though it stands between one marvelous, ivy-garlanded space and another, possibly equally marvelous space. The suggestion of the hallowed halls of a university conjures in me the remembered thrill of every new school year. The hint of golden light peering from just beyond the inner door intrigues me.
Continue reading… "Doorways"I recently read Sigrid Nunez’s The Vulnerables. (2023 by Riverhead Books). Imagine being a writer in New York City early in the pandemic, wandering the streets in guilty enjoyment, not having to do your regular work, but house sitting for a pregnant friend who is unable to return home in time for her delivery. Add to this the fact that the comfortable apartment is not the only thing that needs care. There is a parrot, Eureka, living in one of the rooms, a young unhoused student with previous connection to the home arrives to stay, and in a moment of compassion you loan your own home to a doctor treating pandemic patients.
Continue reading… "What We’re Reading, Winter 2024"Someone once asked me what it was like
to lose my mind; I kid you not, those were
her exact words. She wasn’t unkind, just
curious.
This house is not a secure redoubt.
The walls are breached, and I hear the
Scrambling rhythm of my rebuilt heart.
Sitting in the chapel with the coffin in front of us, I suddenly realised the wedding suit I’d given the funeral directors for Frank to wear would be too small. He’d filled out a bit since we were married fourteen years before. I wondered if this was a regular thing at the funeral parlour, trying to squeeze corpses into too tight outfits provided by their loved ones. It made me smile. One last joke with Frank before the flames took him.
Continue reading… "The Performance of Grief"And never forget that being invisible kept my abuelo, your great grandfather, from being deported during the Depression. They were grabbing people off the sidewalks of Los Angeles to send back to Mexico. They didn’t care if you were a citizen or not. If they saw a brown person, they put them on a train and sent them south.” As always when she talked about the dead, she crossed herself. “We have long survived by being invisible.”
Continue reading… "The Invisible Man"Jordan came to visit us in New York. I didn’t know what to do with him. We had almost nothing in common. He wasn’t interested in visiting museums or going to plays or taking long walks through the city. His obsession was comic books. He dreamed of accumulating a valuable collection.
Continue reading… "The Lost Brother – Part Two"These visions do not torment you forever, as ever more immediate threats emerge to the tidy reality you made your home, where the river that appealed and beckoned to you had a discrete character and could never, to use a maladroit phrase, overstep its bounds. It is a river and it does what rivers do. The river has summoned you to come to it and if you lived a million years you might not, without the clarity of this dream, envision a scenario where the river comes to you. Now things are more fluid and the water knows no bounds at all . . .
Continue reading… "Where All Your Travels End"What could I do but remove the strips from the package and, one-by-one rinse them under the faucet, dry them on paper towels and finally carve off the top part where the pepper was concentrated? That worked well enough, but I must remember to lay in a supply of non-pepper bacon—probably the maple kind—for the next toddler visit. Or maybe I can begin tempting her over to the dark side. Never too early.
Continue reading… "Peppercorns – The Tiny Fruit"He lingered by the curtains. A flicker in his pupils told of firelight and sadness. The dark-haired woman shivered. The room, the night, despair: a drink that’s served straight up. She tendered a quivering finger at Johnny in the mirror. His reflection hovered, higher, lower. “It’s one way to escape.”
Continue reading… "A Change in Rhythm"