Hoping for Words to Flow Like Water

Eureka Springs, Arkansas is the town that water built. Plaques mark the springs on Spring Street, and their entrances look like shrines, the stone arches set off with carefully manicured topiaries and pristine gravel paths bordered with plants. There are benches or stone tables where presumably once upon a time one might have been served the healing waters. Spring Street boasts bath houses that offer healing massages and steam rooms, and the sound of water singing in the limestone bluffs never seems far away.

I'm here to write, not bathe. But I know that words can also can also heal us.

Or dirty us. I'm trying to cut back a bit on reading our national news--or at least choose to read some things that offer a few drops of hope.

Crying on Planes

Alaska. I can't quite remember if I cried on this flight. Maybe not. I was with a good friend.

The first time I cried on a plane was also my very first flight. My grandmother had  a heart attack and lay dying in a hospital in Dubuque, Iowa. I had been on a road trip with an aunt and uncle and when we got the news, the aunt I was traveling with, the aunt we were visiting in Baltimore, and I flew back to Iowa while my two uncles drove the camper through the night and met us there. I was 14 and saved, for maybe a a decade, the individual salt and pepper shakers and the stir stick I'd gotten with the Shirley Temple I'd gulped while swallowing my grief. Whenever I ran across these things in a drawer full of keepsakes they made me sad all over again.

The next time I flew was when my grandfather died. He had a heart attack--and died according to my mother's account--before he hit the floor. By this time I was a freshman in college and hurriedly made the 350-mile trip home, not sure how to negotiate the travel arrangements, thereby arriving at the airport completely rattled.  I remember crying openly on this flight, any effort to swallow the tears impossible.

My father died the next year, and I flew home suddenly once again. There had been a few flights to visit a boyfriend in between, but those trips were emotional minefields too since we'd given up our son for adoption just weeks before we started college. Airplane trips and crying were one and the same to me back then.

Things changed when I flew to France my junior year of college for a semester abroad. Flying was for fun and adventure, but I think I remember laughing so hard that I cried. In the ensuing years of marriage and children, there were more flights that fell into the category of mostly fun, but the motherhood years were when the flying anxiety began in ernest. More crying on airplanes.

With my aunt and my mom aging on the east coast, there were even more reasons to cry on planes. The break-up of my marriage was the watershed (pun intended.) I not only cried copiously on every flight I took anywhere--but I cried while telling my seat mate why I was crying. I have cried--or felt like crying-- for one reason or another on almost every flight I've ever taken.

My flying anxiety is somewhat less these days--but today I found myself crying on a plane once again. Traveling to the Twin Cities to meet my friend Carol who has been on a road trip since May 1 in her 45 ft. RV, I wanted to bring her a gift and found the perfect book: My Life On the Road by Gloria Steinem. I thought I might page through it a bit on the flight. The dedication and the epigraph brought tears to my eyes, and I settled in to read the book, crying over something in nearly every chapter. A history of feminism, told through the lens of Steinem's travels, reading it now when we are on the cusp of electing our first woman president during this era of burgeoning hate and prejudice, is an emotional experience. I'm half-way through the book and wonder what it will be like finishing it on the ground.

Crying on planes, it turns out, is a thing.

You can read about it:  ATLANTIC  BUSTLE
And you can listen to THIS AMERICAN LIFE episode.

People cry on planes.

Secret Solstice Sunset

The sun refused to show itself at the close of the shortest day, sinking into the water behind a wall of clouds.

I haven't shown myself much lately either. I've been roaming the house in the dead of night with a throat so sore that I can't sleep, then making my way back to bed when the middle of the night House Hunters re-run lulls me into submission. In the morning I wake with half-a-dozen Ricola wrappers on the night stand, convinced that certainly this will be the day I feel better. And I do for a little while. But then. Crash. However, this being the longest night of the year, I may be up again watching Love It or List it, International House Hunters or god knows what. I should be reading through my stack of New Yorkers, brushing up on my French or something but it feels like there's a block of goo filling my brain. Okay, it might have been that last night I finally did sleep. If I sleep again tonight, I'm going to proclaim myself cured.

Meanwhile, I've been appropriately engaged during  these dark days.  I'm spinning around and around trying to get my mom on Medicaid. This morning I confirmed that state #1 has now faxed State #2 in order to confirm that the measly little life insurance policy of my mom's has no cash value and therefore cannot be counted as an asset prohibiting her from qualifying for Medicaid yet again. So if State #2 faxes back to State #1, all should be well. Riiiiight? How's this for a darkest day of the year fear: My mom will finally get that Medicaid acceptance letter the day she takes her final breath. I've been working on the Medicaid thing since the end of September.

Here's what I've been reading these short days and long nights:

It's Never Too Early to Start Thinking about Your Own Death

What Working in a Nursing Home Taught Me

Our Bodies, Ourselves

If You're 30% Through Your Life... (of course I know that I'm at least 60% through my life)

A Parting Lesson From My Parents

How Mindfulness Can Ease the Fear of Death and Dying

I might add that I've also been drinking some nice wine, eating rum balls and chocolate truffles, and lighting lots of candles.

One of the denizens of Hearst Castle

What have you been reading during these dark days, dear ones? Where are you finding the light?

Friday Beach Report /Dispatch from Los Angeles

It's hard to see in this photo, but all of the white thing are velella velella (by-the-wind sailors) In real life they're shiny and look a bit like discarded condoms, as if there'd been a safe sex orgy on the sand.

Today there were hundreds of washed up dead by-the-wind sailors. Who knows why they aren't blue. The question mark from the stalk of some kind of reed or tall grass is not staged. I guess the universe also wants to know why the velella velella aren't blue.

But I saw dolphins on my walk. So we haven't killed everything yet. A stroke of luck.

And I found a parking spot on La Brea Ave. (I'm writing this from L.A.) so that's lucky too. I'm having a latteé at a nice little coffee place in preparation for my 24-hour break from caregiving. I'm hoping for a good night's sleep after my friend Elizabeth's fabulous book salon. Last night my mom yelled a lot in her sleep. This morning while I made my coffee, she was still at it. "Well!" she said, "I'm going to need the car!" Maybe she was trying to get to L.A. so she could be here waiting for me. That could be fun. She's a little unclear on this book salon thing though. Every time I tell her that I'm going to a book club, she thinks it's to a discuss a book I've written. Thanks, mom. I appreciate the vote of confidence.

So yeah, if you want to buy my book, scroll down.

I also highly recommend "A Constellation of Vital Phenomena" by Anthony Marra. It is profoundly amazing and my favorite book salon selection so far.

Report from Pillville: Tiny gifts and an update on the possum

I've begun to look for little presents for my mom--special treats to eat, found treasures from the beach, a book, a bauble. On Tuesday I found a plastic shark in the sand during my beach walk and I brought it home to her. On Wednesday, she was thrilled to see the pile of beach glass I culled from the rocks. Thursday I browsed a bit in our local behemoth of a used bookstore before my weekly massage. On the shelf devoted to local interest, I found a book called "The Sea Captain's Wife," a true story written by a local woman, set in the early 20th century. "That's one of our most popular books," the clerk told me. "It sounds good," I said, "And I'm thinking about becoming a sea captain's wife." I might actually like to be a sea captain's wife, but mostly I was joking around. The clerk didn't seem to get the joke. "I wonder if we have anything else about that," he said, seeming a bit flummoxed. I thanked him and left it at that. My mom pounced on the book the minute I showed it to her. Right now she's in her room finishing "Epitaph for a Peach: Four Seasons On My Family Farm," so she can get started on her new book. I think she might prefer memoir to fiction. So maybe it's no surprise that I like to write it.

Right now the lovely M and her friend are getting fro-yo and will be bringing back some for my mom. They made a delicious dinner for the four of us. Grilled salmon with a sweet and savory glaze, truffle cheese mashed potatoes, and grilled nectarine salad. My mom seems to be shaving more and more foods off her list, but tonight she ate everything on her plate.

We spotted the possum prowling around the patio last night, and this morning we woke to a sucked-dry humming bird feeder. My mom has named the possum Peter. I've decided that his mate should be called Polly. I think they party out there every night. We also have a pair of mallards living on our boat dock, and a sparrow who's in love with his own reflection. Unlike the other sparrows and finches who hang round the bird feeder on the opposite side of the house, the narcissistic sparrow flies around and around in front of the mirror on our patio wall, enchanted by his own reflection. It's mating season in Pillville. Well.  Outside anyway.

Signs, Proof, and the Buddha Makes Lemonade

This is proof.

That this happened this weekend.

And this.

But I have no proof of what I saw this evening when I went for a walk around the block. Looking in my patio window, I saw my mother reaching behind my cookbooks where I stash my unfinished bottle of wine. Her martini glass had been drained just minutes before, and I mistakenly thought that her body had forgotten the sea of alcohol that it had been afloat in for so long. Of late she's been congenial about her two-ounce martini. She might have seen me. But maybe not. The bottle of wine was tightly sealed with one of those vacuum corks, and when I returned (just minutes later,) it was still sealed. "That sure was a short walk," she said. "It was," I said.

And this novel I'm reading, "The Debt to Pleasure," by John Lanchester---SPOILER ALERT---overwhelmed me with its darkness this afternoon. I have no proof, but there are signs that our narrator is a psychopath who has murdered his parents and caused the death of  perhaps two household employees. The book is a feast of language and wit and actual recipes. Not to mention a banquet of arcana that regularly sends me on a Google tangent. BUT. Either I've figured out on page 111 where this story is going or my prediction of where it all will end is a sign of my own darkness. 

And I'm not sure what's going on here in my iPhoto as it interfaces with Blogger, but for the second time in recent months, a photo that I have not selected--a photo from months ago--has appeared in this post. It's a photo from Dan's memorial. I'm going to call it a sign. 

Local Author Moderates Discussion at Book Club

Artist: Belinda Jack

Yeah. I did.
Chocolate. Cheese. Divine wine served in exquisite antique goblets.
Oh, and did I mention the razor smart women?

When the subject of sealed birth certificates came up, not everyone knew how that worked. Go HERE. You might be surprised too.

Reading, Grief, Authors I Love, and Shebooks' Equal Writes Campaign

I confess. I'm lying in bed. I slept for 9 hours last night, but after washing and putting away all of the linens that were used for guest beds during Dan's final days, I'm horizontal again.

Lying in bed is a good place to keep up with the condolence notes. (Thank your from the bottom of my heart for each and every word.) Email. Facebook. I read and write back. Or just read, making a mental note to write back later.

Reading anything longer than these note from my friends and Dan's friends has been pretty much impossible. My eyes seem to be unable to focus right or something. Today, however, my friend Elizabeth Aquino's book has come out on Shebooks.  I've had the privilege of watching this book take shape while we wrote together at UCLA and in Elizabeth's living room, as well as in the homes of others in our small writers' group. I am positive I can read this book because I love what I know of it so much, and it will be positively thrilling to see it whole. I hope you will read this courageous and beautiful story too.

And while you are traveling around on the Interwebs, check out The Equal Writes Campaign. 

Oh, and yeah, I have a contract with Shebooks too. More about that when my book is released.

A Publishing Contract!

Shebooks, the fabulous new e-book publisher, will be publishing an excerpt of my memoir. The date is not nailed down yet, so you'll be hearing more from me about that soon. I'm thrilled to be in the company of some very fine writers.

You can read more about Shebooks HERE. I've been devouring them.

Little Victories

I had it all figured out at the beginning of the week. After the four ER visits in one month with my mom, it was clear that I needed to change everything.

I ordered the fall detector button. My mother and I went adult day care shopping. "The second one is the best one," she said enthusiastically, her smile for the camera smile frozen onto her face. I told various people, including the social worker at the day care place that I needed someone to come into my house a few mornings a week as well. Following what seemed to be other prudent advice, I bought keyed doorknobs for my bedroom and the daughters bedrooms--what with "strangers" coming and going--and made arrangements to have them installed. The schedule for the day care place was worked out including the pick-up and drop-off. My world cracked opened so wide I almost felt agoraphobic. What would I do until 2:30 on Tuesdays and Fridays? Would the placid silence inspire me to write? Would I be able to read without getting up to see if the moaning or swearing or banging around was something more than crying wolf? Would I go out to lunch with a friend? Take off early for a weekend away if M could come by on Friday afternoon? I could do anything I wanted for six straight hours, knowing that someone else was responsible for my mom.

Friday evening she told me she wasn't going to get on a bus so early (9:00 a.m.) in the morning. She simply was not going to do it. The therapy chairs, the hot packs, the massage for arthritis pain, live entertainment, other ladies to crochet with, physical therapy, dancing--none of it could change her mind. "Well, great," I said, Now, I'm a prisoner."
"Then have someone come in to babysit me," she said, obviously not happy about that either.

Meanwhile the man who loves me and I were squabbling. "But you said..."
"That's not what I meant...."
"You absolutely said that."

In a completely black mood all day yesterday after the glow of yoga quickly dissipated, I raged and mulled unable to do much of anything except walk around and around my neighborhood. I woke every hour last night asking myself what sort of a person picked fights with old ladies and guys with lung cancer doped up on pain killers.

Today I decided I would read in my room with the door closed and some non-distracting background music to muffle whatever was going on downstairs. An easy book. Something engaging. So I picked up an Elmore Leonard novel and napped every ten pages or so feeling like perhaps I should be the one going to adult day care, and asking someone to accompany me on my doctor's appointments. At 4 p.m. I woke in time for a sunset walk.

I didn't jump in the marina or stop a boat and ask to get on. I didn't go to a bar and drink ten margaritas.

Don't Judge My Covers by My Books

I used to read just one book at a time. Never, ever read two books for pleasure simultaneously. My brain kinda broke during my divorce and reading anything felt like a trek up a foggy mountain. I have no idea how I got my MFA during those first two post-divorce years. Everything I read, I had to read each sentence, each paragraph over and over again. Nowadays, I read a little of this, a little of that. I sleep with a pile of books and reach for the one I'm in the mood for at night. Reach for another in the morning. Take a couple to my comfy chair in the afternoon if I have time. There's poetry next to the bathroom sink and in the john. Lit magazines in my car. Lit magazines everywhere, actually.

I have no loyalty to prose or poetry. Novels don't own me. Memoir, you know I'll kiss and tell. Paper, screen--I don't care. I just want it. Morning, noon, and night.

Fearful Symmetry

In a weird symmetry both the Someone and the man who loves me have been very sick with the flu. I would not know of the Someone's condition, of course, if it weren't for the fact that I have contacted him a half-dozen times asking him to please get a new court order to formalize the lowered alimony he began paying in January. He has invoked his illness as an excuse. A good excuse, as excuses go, but making a phone call is probably not going to spike a fever. Then again, I've become physically ill by having to root through a box of divorce papers.

I haven't seen the man who loves me for a month. Like many who've caught the flu this year, he's had a relapse and sounds positively awful.

Meanwhile, here in Margaritaville, the days tick by in their own symmetry. When I come downstairs in the morning, my mom is already up. She's opened the curtains, and fed the cat, and is standing in her spot at the kitchen island looking out at the water. I go to the gym, and when I come back, she's still there in her p.j.s drinking her re-warmed coffee. We talk. We read the paper. We talk about the paper. I eat my breakfast. She goes to her room to crochet and read, and I go up to my room to read and write. I come down for tea. She has her lunch. I have mine. She re-warms the last of her coffee. Off we go again to our separate retreats.

At five, the ancient cat meows for her special ancient cat milk. My mom gives the cat her "cocktail," and  pours her martini. I begin to prep for dinner and maybe race off to the store. Seven--we eat. She does the dishes. I put away the food and wipe down the counters. I brush the ancient cat while she takes a last scroll through the news on the iPad. She says good-night. I say good-night.

I read. The New Yorker. Jack Gilbert's poems. One of the many books from my MFA colleagues. Prairie Schooner. Missouri Review. The pages from my writing group. And sometimes I blog. When I hear the beep of my mom's oxygen machine turning on, I sink deeper into the reading or the writing. At my desk in the dark, I look out at the shining black water and marvel at rings radiating across the surface. Sometimes I open my window and listen for the heron's croak or the deep gasp of a sea lion as it comes to the surface. I take a deep breath, too.

Wild Night

I recall power outages as stealthy things. Suddenly you woke aware that it was lighter outside that it should be. The face of your plug-in alarm clock frozen. Your heart sinking with the knowledge that you were already late for work.

Nowadays, the power-less silence has found its voice. When the power went out here last night around 4:00 a.m., the noise woke me. Beep from the security system. Chirp from the carbon monoxide detector. Beeebeeep from my mother's oxygen machine (don't worry, she only uses it at night and can survive quite well without it.) Thankfully the security system only beeped once. Not like the overly courteous system at my old house. But the noise was good. It woke me, and I took a battery-powered lantern downstairs to my mom's bathroom. She was already awake. "Now you can see if you need to get up," I told her."
"What time is it?" she asked.
"Four,"I said.
"What?" she said. I grabbed the lantern and held up four fingers. "What time is it?" she asked again.
"One, two, three, four," I said again.
"Okay," she said. "Four-O-One."
"Right," I said. Although it was probably 4:05 by then.

I couldn't sleep. So I read some more of "Wild" by Cheryl Strayed and tried not to freak out as my mom yelled and talked in her sleep. Eventually,I drifted off and woke to the clatter of my printer re-booting itself around 5:00. My feet were killing me when I woke. I guess I was hiking with Cheryl in the ten minutes or so that I slept. Luckily the pain was just part of the dream, and my feet were fine as I went back downstairs to check on my mom. She was sitting on the side of her bed, already resetting her clock. Maybe she'd been hiking with us, too--shouting at bears, or foxes, or trying to scare Sasquatch away.

photo credit: todrinkthewildair.com

Report from Pillville: the Podiatrist, the Cardiologist and Miracle Ear Part V, etc. etc.

The Podiatrist:
Doctor+ power tools-general anesthesia=thank god, I'm sitting down on a chair that has arms because I began to sway. My mom was a trooper, though. Corns removed on the outside and inside of little toes. Toenail fungus ground into near oblivion. Plus, I acquainted her with some spiffy new shoes from Arcopedico. I discovered what a miracle these shoes were for my backaches when I was walking to and from the train before I left the City of Angels. They're easy on the toes, too. Mom has the blue ones and the hot pink ones. I now have three colors--hot pink, orange, and green. The red ones are tempting....don't worry I can stop at any time. Uh, but what I really need is a pair of Arcopedico sandals...in some nice colors.

The Cardiologist/the carotid artery and an echocardiogram of the heart:
"I've never had any tests like those before," she said.
"Are you sure? You have a pacemaker.....wouldn't they perform these tests before installing a box in your chest?"
Hmmm. Who knows? Maybe it's one of those past memory fragments that's just fallen away. In any event, now we await the results--the doctor will call if there's anything scary to report.

Miracle Ear:
5 appointments=1 working hearing aid. The only thing good I have to say about Miracle Ear at this point is that the technician who has been taking care of my mom and the her receptionist are the sweetest. There's a little hug fest every time we say good-bye. Really, these are nice, nice people. The hearing aid tech had tears in her eyes on the last visit when she had to break the news that one of the new hearing aids arrived not working. Hellooooo people, can you hear me? Floss, wear sunscreen, and take care of your ears. Hey, you with the ear buds and the music so loud that I can dance to it, turn it the fuck down.

The New Medication (Namenda): 
So far, so good. I've been watching and waiting. Yesterday, I heard a little freakout outside the laundry room (smoking area #2.) It was the first thing in the morning and I rushed downstairs, half gym clothes/half pajamas, to check it out. She had a ball of lint in her hand the size of a mouse. It startled her. But the same thing has been happening on the patio with spiders all along. She's always had a big reaction to things that scare her. I swear I can still see her and hear her screaming in our kitchen as she fashioned a dish towel into a sling the day my brother broke both the bones in his arm 45 years ago. Blood is even worse. I won't churn those waters. And the morning shortly after my high school graduation when she figured out I was pregnant? Oh, if I ever self-publish my book, you can read about it.
I asked her at dinner last night if she noticed feeling any different from the new drug. She shook her head. "Not at all," she said. But the only thing she was really feeling right then was the gin.
The real trouble is that whenever I want to think of the name of this drug...uh, I can't remember it. I got it now though....Amend+Namasté.

Bone Density and the Density of the Demeanor in Doctors' Office Staff:
Call to office #1: Hello again, you little bitch, I'm not asking for your first-born child, I'm just asking if you could ever-so-kindly double check to see if there is a bone density scan in my mom's records that maybe didn't get sent to her new doctor.
Call to office #2: Oh, hi, gosh thanks for calling me back so fast, wow, yes, please fax the scan to my mom's new doc. Oh, and you have some of the doctor's notes and you want to fax those, too? You have a nice afternoon, too.

The Calendar:
There's some white space in front of us. I told her last night that the only thing we have on the calendar for the rest of October and November is an appointment at Miracle Ear. Of course, that could morph into a series of follow-ups, but maybe not. "You might need to start going out to do other stuff," I said. "Fun stuff." She likes staying home, she said. Watching the birds, and the boats. Crocheting. And she has a stack of books that the man who loves me gave her for her birthday.
And yes, she should see a gastroenterologist. The Beano has been an utter failure. Flatulence and poor hearing is a comically cruel combo. My son laughs about it---says it's an awesome  way to proceed with life--giving up that bit of self-conscious propriety. He's got a point, but I'm not signing on to that yet. Farting just doesn't match up with those cute pink shoes.

Wanna come over for a beer?

I fret about my lack of social life--or L.A.'s version of a social life anyway which usually requires one to get in a car and race down the freeway, planning around rush hour traffic whenever possible.  I'm spoiled by writer's residencies, I guess, and maybe my long-ago life in a small town where familiar faces are close by and eating dinner alone would be just plain weird. I do have friends in L.A. It's just that I seldom do what's required to see them. I'm not sure why.

But yesterday I actually had two social encounters: Lunch with two writer friends at a Silver Lake restaurant called Forage--which in my head I kept wanting to call Rampage, which is what I wanted to do when I saw the food. In a good way. All fresh and delicious and healthy with plenty of inventive veggie options. Goat cheese and date jam, with a crumble of hazelnuts and diced mint on toast. It's all in the garnish.
I should garnish more.

A little later it was Mythos beer and pistachios on my patio with a poet I met in Greece. Somehow it seems to me that all these fabulous women writers I know should be getting together more often and making our own mini-residencies where we write all day and get together for dinner. We should trade houses or apartments from time to time, too. Shake out our brains in different surroundings and see what ends up on the page.

It's a revealing encounter--getting together with friends you haven't seen in months. You have to get caught up, explain where you've been and what you've been up to, what you've written or what you're working on. I realized that  since the BIG DIVORCE NEWS  in July (that was practically a month ago,) I  haven't done much writing. I've been reading short things--poems, and New Yorker stories, and blog posts. My attention span is telling me that it spent four years spinning through nastiness and absurdity. It doesn't want sustained anything now.

And I want to be outside on my little citified patio. Who's going to win--me or the white fly? Will the blueberries get off their twiggy little butts and bear some fruit? Is it the same damn squirrel who keeps stalking my apricot tree. Or is it a hybrid squirrel-rat (squat--you pronounce that with an A like in apple,) and can a squirrel really breed with a rat and is the neighborhood overrun with these skinny-tailed beasts? Do I have room for another flowering plant--or should I see if I can get some tomatoes going this late. What about an olallieberry? This is what I've been thinking about.

But I did realize while talking to my friends, that though my brain is in neutral, my life seems garnished with spoonfuls of sweetness these days.

Handsome, Dark... and fits in my purse

Say what you want about the feel of a "real" book. The smell of paper, the way it feels in your hands. You can keep your dead trees and sniff all the glue that your heart desires because I'm in love with Mr. Kindle. I just finished reading Barbara Kingsolver's "The Lacuna" on my Kindle, and after I "turned" the last page I went to "My Notes and Marks" to re-read my favorite parts. Things like,"This is what it means to be alone: everyone is connected to everyone else, their bodies are a bright liquid life flowing around you, sharing a single heat that drives them to move all together. If the shark comes they will all escape, and leave you to be eaten." Or, "The past is all we know of the future."
Imagine my surprise at the next item on the Kindle menu, "View Popular Highlights." Yes. The favorite passages of other readers who have enjoyed "The Lacuna" on Kindle. Everyone is connected to everyone else--in a good way. Or at least those of us who read a book on Kindle and like it enough to mark the sections that mean something to us. From the top ten of  the most popular highlighted passages, there is this: "The most important thing about a person is always the thing you don't know." And this: "Mr. Shepherd, ye cannot stop a bad thought from coming into your head. But ye need not pull up a chair and bide it sit down."

My daughter M. and I once shared a paperback copy of "The God of Small Things" by Arundati Roy. M. read it first, underlining liberally and then gave the book to me to read. I loved seeing her markings-- knowing what had moved her, which bits of prose had leapt off the page and into her heart. I made my own marks and notes as I read, and then she read the book again, taking into consideration what I had noted. Reading as dialogue. Reading as love of a book and love of a person who loves the same book.
Okay, so maybe my experience today with my Kindle doesn't have quite the same depth as that. But the sea of book-love with Mr. Kindle is wider and has more fish. As both a reader and a writer, I have to say it's pretty big stuff to feel the ripple of a beloved writer's words and know immediately that other readers, even anonymous ones, are being encircled by those ripples too.

A Poem by Amy Gerstler

I read some poetry most days. It's good for a writer of prose to contemplate a story told so concisely. In a good poem, the language is vivid and the emotional pay-off is quick and strong.

Dusk

Dear, I can't subsist on this diet

(really more of a fast—celery

seed and a soft word every other

month) any longer. Is that blood

on your pillowcase or another girl's

lipstick? I want you to know,

I've had such unalloyed joy

over the past several decades,

smelling your hair and petting

your sweat-beaded feet while

you were asleep. It was far sweeter

than I ever thought possible.

But my ancestors are welling up

in me now and keep nudging me

toward the door. Bells are rung,

harps are played: recessional music.

We both know the theater will close

in a few minutes. If you had been

more attentive or a better pretender,

I could have run on fumes for a few

more years, sipping snowmelt,

remaining quite high on it. Let

the record show, I recited prayers

for your perpetual ascension

and good health as I laid this note

in its frozen envelope on your desk

and left, taking both dogs, the teal

parakeet, and the black cat with me.

They got custody of our love.