We please our fancy with ideal webs/Of innovation, but our life meanwhile/Is in the loom, where busy passion plies/The shuttle to and fro, and gives our deeds/The accustomed pattern. -Shakespeare (Henry VIII), qtd. in Eliot’s Daniel Deronda If I told you that I had spent the last three weeks, in between yoga and pottery and…
(Greek) light acquires a transcendent quality: it is not the light of the Mediterranean alone, it is something more, something unfathomable, something holy. Here the light penetrates directly to the soul, opens the doors and windows of the heart, makes one naked, exposed, isolated. - Henry Miller (The Colossus of Maroussi), qtd. in Tony Perottet's…
A burgundy leaf fell from the Japanese maple and landed upright in a spinach artichoke dip. It was chilly in the shadow under the tree. Soon, there would be the long winter, cold and white. An erasure of this night, the garden. -Lauren Groff (Fates and Furies) When I last left you, it was high…
Volare, oh oh Cantare, oh oh oh oh Let's fly way up to the clouds Away from the maddening crowds We can sing in the glow of a star that I know of Where lovers enjoy peace of mind Let us leave the confusion and all disillusion behind Just like bird of a feather, a…
Alice in Wonderland birthday parties; Spanish-speaking nannies; healthy children harvesting perfect blue chicken eggs from the back-yard coop; homeschooled wonders who read by age three; flat, tight bellies; happy husbands; cake pops; craft time [...] homemade lip balm; tremendous flat pans of paella prepared over a beach campfire. What sort of sadist is running these…
Herbal and verbal, Daniel said. Language is like poppies. It just takes something to churn the earth round them up, and when it does up come the sleeping words, bright red, fresh, blowing about. Then the seedheads rattle, the seeds fall out. Then there's even more language waiting to come up. -Ali Smith (Autumn) Almost…
We have all been brought up on stories from the "Panhandle," the northern part of Texas that is truly the shape and just as flat as the handle of an old pot iron skillet. Perhaps the most famous tale is the myth that in winter there is nothing between Amarillo and the North Pole but…
You will have only one story. You'll write your one story many ways. Don't ever worry about story. You have only one. -Elizabeth Strout (My Name is Lucy Barton) If you've read your fair share of world literature or seen a lot of classic movies, you might have noticed that novelty isn't always the…
I open up this time so I can feel all the other time around it. I can see it in sharp focus: a difference of this or that, the light or the dark. I am choosing the light. -Sarah Gerard (Sunshine State) Adulthood is a funny thing. You may think that you've attained this…
Every year, at least a week before the Greek's birthday, I ask him what kind of cake he would like. More often than not, it is this stout cake with cream cheese frosting, but, in the almost seven years we have been together, deviations have been known to happen. The same can be said for…
Dining with Dostoevsky 