It's easy to get swept away by the everyday: barking dogs, disrupted sleep, the feeling that you are waiting for something that continues to elude you. I realized recently that our lives in Delaware, or what I've come to refer to affectionately as "Limbo Land," can seem fairly one note; this may be because, as…
What happens to you doesn't belong to you, only half concerns you. It's not yours. Not yours only. - Claudia Rankine, qtd. in Tayari Jones' An American Marriage If you pay attention to such things, you may have noticed that many books and movies, before launching into their primary narrative, have a little section--a…
The little society, one and all, entered into this laudable design; and set themselves to exert their different talents. The little piece of ground yielded them a plentiful crop. Cunegund indeed was very ugly, but she became an excellent hand at pastrywork; Pacquette embroidered; the old woman had the care of the linen. There was…
Every week, by the time Friday rolls around, I itch to get out of the house. I realize this may sound a little dramatic, especially because I am a self-described (and proud) homebody, but when you combine the cabin fever of winter with the reality of rolling out of bed in your pajamas and, within…
"Don't discourage me. In my job I have to paste one fact to another with words, and in the end everything has to seem coherent even if it's not.""But if the coherence isn't there, why pretend? "To create order." -Elena Ferrante (The Story of the Lost Child) It's hard to believe now as life again…
The countryside and the train had subsided to a gentle roll, and she could see nothing but pastureland and black cows from window to horizon. She wondered why she had never thought her country beautiful. -Harper Lee (Go Set a Watchman)I can’t place it exactly, but it was one of those long summers in college,…
Dining with Dostoevsky 