93. Essays, part I

The other day an email appeared in my inbox heralding a weeklong event that I (sort of) participated in last year, and so I'm on the list for this year too, it seems. It's called "Essay Camp," and its on the Substack called "A Writer's Notebook" by Summer Brennan. The point being to write an essay over the next week. Simple, huh?

Yeah, sure.

Michel de Montaigne,
father of the essay

Summer writes this: "An essay is famously defined as 'an attempt.' That is the root of the word. It means to try—but try to do what? To understand, to clarify, to persuade, to compare, to connect, to remember, to preserve. An essay can be long or short, personal or impersonal. It can express a truth or explain a stance, introduce an idea or marry two seemingly unrelated ideas together. In that trying, the author’s thought process is often visible on the page. To write an essay is to reach for something, not so much to explain as to explore."

As so often, I take a look, and yes! these look like wonderful exercises. And as so often, I then wander on to some other distraction, thinking maybe I'll just collect all six or however many days' worth and then—one day when my slate is as clean as can be—sit down and really apply myself. 

Seventy-plus years on this planet, and I still have no self-awareness!

Anyway, the reason I'm writing all this today is to catalog the "exemplary essays" that Summer mentions at the end of each day's assignment. Reading essays, she points out, is a critical exercise as we tiptoe into the murky waters that are our own lives and try to make sense of what we find.

This is part I, presenting the first three days of "Essay Camp." I'll tackle the second half in a future post. And apologies to Summer for stealing wholesale. If you're interested in her Substack, you can find it here.

On day 1, it was "some familiar classics that show variety in length, subject, and style." I've read many of these, but they are all worth a revisit:

"Tiny Beautiful Things," by Cheryl Strayed, 896 words, 4 minute read
"The Death of the Moth," by Virginia Woolf, 1,175 words, 5 minutes
"A Good Café on the Place St-Michel," from A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway, 1,639 words, 6 minutes
"Me Talk Pretty One Day," by David Sedaris, 1,847 words, 9 minutes
"Shooting an Elephant," by George Orwell, 3,283 words, 12 minutes
"Night Walks," by Charles Dickens, 3,788 words, 14 minutes
"Goodbye to All That," by Joan Didion, about 4,000 words, 18 minutes
"Total Eclipse," by Annie Dillard, 5,589 words, 22 minutes
"Notes on 'Camp,'" by Susan Sontag, about 6,000 wordes, 24 minutes
"Equal in Paris," by James Baldwin, 6,775 words, 28 minutes
"The Fourth State of Matter," by Jo Ann Beard, about 7,200 words, 30 minutes
"Consider the Lobster," by David Foster Wallace, about 7,500 words, 32 minutes

Day 2

"Ghost Story," by Maggie Smith, 618 words, 2.5 minutes
"The Smoker," by Ottessa Moshfegh, 1,098 words, 4 minutes
"The Invitation," by Barry Lopez, 1,758 words, 7 minutes
"Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant," from Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin, 1,673 words, 7 minutes
"Kevin Brazil," by Kevin Brazil, 3,090 woreds, 12 minutes
"On Keeping a Notebook," by Joan Didion, 3,052 words, 12 minutes
"Joy," by Zadie Smith, 2,868 words, 12 minutes
"The Youth in Asia," by David Sedaris, 3,294 words, 13 minutes
"The Terror of Love," by Samantha Irby, 3,570 words, 13 minutes
"A Toast Story," by John Gravois, 3,838 words, 15 minutes
"Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life," by Yiyun Li, 3,948 words, 15 minutes
"The Curse," by Alexander Chee, 4,924 words, 20 minutes
"My Instagram," by Dayna Tortorici, 8,323 words, 33 minutes

Day 3

"Things That Appear Ugly or Troubling but upon Closer Inspection Are Beautiful," by Gretchen Legler, 468 words, 2 minutes
"Love Songs: I'm Your Man," by Laurie Stone, 722 words, 3 minutes
"The Negreeting," in The Book of Delights by Ross Gay, 722 words, 3 minutes
"Rape Joke," by Patricia Lockwood, 1,266 words, 5 minutes
"An Almanac of Birds," by Maria Popova, 2,141 words, 8 minutes
"Fuck the Bread. The Bread Is Over," by Sabrina Orah Mark, 1,627 words, 8 minutes
"Periwinkle, the Color of Poison, Modernism, and Dusk," by Katy Kelleher, 2,053 words, 8 minutes
"Quitting," by John Phipps, 2,226 words, 9 minutes
"What the Black Woman Thinks about Women's Lib," by Toni Morrison, 3,878 words, 15 minutes
"One Four Two Five Old Sunset Trail," by Joy Williams, 3,936 words, 16 minutes
"Welcome to Dog World," by Blair Braverman, 7, 485 words, 30 minutes

Even if I have to cattle-prod myself to sit down and write essays, it's theoretically quite possible to sit down and read them, and so get some inspiration. 

Part II will follow when Summer has finished presenting this iteration of "Essay Camp."

Book Report: On Beauty

6. Zadie Smith, On Beauty (2005) (3/24/26)

I enjoyed this book well enough. The writing itself is spectacular, and Smith has an amazing way with dialogue. She gives us all the trickiness of interpersonal relationships, whether that comes from the passage of time, differing philosophies of life, class and race disparities, or simply assumptions made. 

The story, which a NYT book review tells me is based loosely on E. M. Forster's Howards End (which I have not read), focuses on a family living in an upscale Boston neighborhood, where the father, 57-year-old Howard Belsey, is a tenureless art historian, white and British, who has recently cheated on his wife, Kiki, African-American and a nurse, less intellectual but certainly not stupid. They have three children, two in college, one still in high school but increasingly hanging out with some Haitian rights activists. Howard's rival, a Trinidadian scholar, comes to town, a visiting professor at Howard's Ivy League–ish college—they both study Rembrandt, drawing very different conclusions about his work, his intentions; and they occupy opposite ends of the political spectrum. This man, Monty, also has a wife and two children, all of whom are woven into the story. And there's a rapper who stumbles into this rarefied environment.

All of which are just some of the characters and details of a constantly shifting story of constantly shifting self-understandings and desires, of time passing and connections made and lost, of strivings and settlings and abandonments, of power plays and deep satisfactions and regrets. It's life.

When I say I enjoyed it "well enough," I'm not sure if I mean I wasn't quite in the mood for what amounts to a multiple-character study, that I would have appreciated a bit more of a plot, or a, I dunno, point? What I'm left with most is how accomplished the writing is, but the story itself is more like a kaleidoscope, giving me no fixed image. Except possibly the very end, where Howard is finally presenting his lecture that could, he hopes, win him tenure—only, in the confusion of reaching the venue late, he left his notes in the car. 

Howard pressed the red button again. A picture came up. He waited a minute and then pressed it once more. Another picture. He kept pressing. People appeared: angels and staalmeesters and merchants and surgeons and students and writers and peasants and kings and the artist himself. And the artist himself. And the artist himself. The man from Pomona began to nod appreciatively. Howard pressed the red button. He could hear Jack French saying to his eldest son, in his characteristically loud whisper: You see, Ralph, the order is meaningful. Howard pressed the red button. Nothing happened. He had come to the end of the line. He looked out and spotted Kiki, smiling into her lap. The rest of the audience were faintly frowning at the back wall. Howard turned his head and looked at the picture behind him.
     'Hendrickje Bathing, 1654,' croaked Howard and said no more.

     On the wall, a pretty, blousy Dutch woman in a simple white smock paddled in water up to her calves. Howard's audience looked at her and then at Howard and then at the woman once more, awaiting elucidation. The woman, for her part, looked away, coyly, into the water. She seemed to be considering whether to wade deeper. The surface of the water was dark, reflective—a cautious bather could not be certain of what lurked beneath. Howard looked at Kiki. In her face, his life. Kiki looked up suddenly at Howard—not, he thought, unkindly. Howard said nothing. Another silent minute passed. The audience began to mutter perplexedly. Howard made the picture larger on the wall as Smith had explained to him how to do. The woman's fleshiness filled the wall. He looked out into the audience once more and saw Kiki only. He smiled at her. She smiled. She looked away, but she smiled. Howard looked back at the woman on the wall, Rembrandt's love, Hendrickje. Though her hands were imprecise blurs, painted heaped on paint and roiled with the brush, the rest of her skin had been expertly rendered in all its variety—chalky whites and lively pinks, the underlying blue of her veins and the ever present human hint of yellow, intimation of what is to come.

That's how the book ends: the final paragraphs. (It doesn't spoil anything—well, nothing important—to quote it.) It reminds me of One Hundred Years of Solitude, which I likewise made my way through enjoying the writing but not quite sure what it all added up to—until the final page, which knocked me out it was so exquisite. This rich book might also transform in my mind from "good enough" to eternally memorable. I guess time will tell.

92. Toes

We took a walk this afternoon at one of our favorite dog-walk spots—only today, no dog. (Sad.) As we made our way back to the car we were walking on sandy trails, and I noticed some one-toed footprints. Horses. Which got us wondering what other one-toed beasts there are. 

Wikipedia to the rescue:

Horses, asses, and zebras, also rhinoceroses, also tapirs—three families, comprising 17 species—all belong to the order of ungulates known as Perissodactyla, meaning odd-toed. Meaning that these animals have reduced the weight-bearing toes to three or one of the original five. (Though tapirs have four toes in front, three in back, so they're a bit of an anomaly.)

The other order of (mostly) ungulates is the Artiodactyla, representing 270 species. Think pigs, peccaries, hippopotamuses, antelopes, deer, giraffes, camels, llamas, alpacas, sheep, goats, and cattle. Even the Cetaceae—dolphins and other toothed whales, baleen whales too (this blows my mind)—are sometimes placed in the Artiodactyla order of Euungulata. They don't even have toes! But they are closely related to hippos. Who knew.

Humans, may I remind you, are in the order Primates, 500 species strong. Our toes don't figure into that categorization. And the rest of the mammals? There are over 20 orders in all:
rodentia (representing 40% of all mammal species)
chiroptera (bats)
insectivores (moles, shrews, hedgehogs)
carnivora (dogs, cats, bears, raccoons, skunks, mongooses, weasels, and more)
lagomorphs (rabbits, hares, pikas)
proboscids (elephants)
pilosa (anteaters and sloths)
cingulata (armadillos)
sirenia (dugongs and manatees)
the marsupials: kangaroos, koalas, and wombats; opossums; bandicoots (three orders)
monotremes (platypus and echidnas)
and don't forget the pangolins, aardvarks, flying lemurs, and tree and elephant shrews

Sometimes I find it easier to try to puzzle out these various connections of our natural world than to try to make sense of human . . . what word do I want here? bullshit, malarkey, tragedy, stupidity, hubris, sad sad sad sadness. 

Maybe it's more convenient to parse a Grèvys zebra from a plains zebra, a chimpanzee from a bonobo. But shouldn't we be figuring out how to live human with human? 

91. Billionaires

I am (this is, I anticipate, going to be a bit of a disjointed rant) beside myself at the injustices of this country, this world, and the inequities, and the selfishness. Capitalism: I spit on it. It's just the new brand of feudalism—a few at the top, the rest of us below, getting stomped on. 

Not that I, personally, am getting stomped on—but my needs are modest. I managed to get born in an in-between moment when it was looking good for a middle class, when the rich weren't especially filthy. My husband worked a good job, and we managed to save up some. 

But what about the various Gens—X, Millennial, Z, Alpha, and now Beta: I see a lot of worrying about their futures. Justifiably, maybe. I don't know how you can actually make a career out of being an "influencer." But some seem to manage it. And hopefully real jobs will stay around.

Though the poor—there's never been a time without destitution. No matter the generation. Capitalism makes it hard to get anywhere. You've got to have serious breaks. Heaven forbid the government could help individuals find a decent life.

Anyway, yeah: tonight I got to thinking about all those billionaires. Careless, uncaring. What CAN they do with all that money? I honestly don't have a clue. How many yachts, helicopters, or private jets, never mind "homes," can one own?

As of March 2026, so Google AI tells me, there are 3,428 billionaires in the world, 989 in the U.S., followed next by China and India. There's a new billionaire every day, apparently. Altogether, these people (481 of whom are women) have a combined wealth of $20.1 trillion. 

As Google AI again tells me, "a trillion dollars ($1,000,000,000,000) is visually represented as a massive, 100-level-high structure of $100-note pallets covering a football field twice, standing taller than the Statue of Liberty. It is 10,000 stacks of $100 million crates, enough to dwarf a human, making them look like an ant."

A mere billion dollars, meanwhile, "is best visualized as a 34-foot high cube of $100 bills, or in $1 bills would reach 67 miles high . . . and would take 274 years to spend at a rate of $10,000 per day."

And here I'm feeling extravagant for booking a $250-a-night hotel for a week in Berlin in June? (And yeah, it does feel extravagant.)

You can find the top ten industries for billionaires, and the richest individuals in each, here. (Though that article is from two years ago, so who knows what the shake-down is now.)

Meanwhile, I get incensed by footballers and actors and musicians getting paid tens of millions of dollars for their—I want to put "work" in quotation marks, but sure, they are working. It might not be improving the future of humanity, but it's work. And in the case of movie actors and musicians, I eat it up, so what I am complaining about? 

I also know actors who make nothing, but who do the work because they love it. I have many musician friends who go out every week and perform at a local venue, with a dedicated coterie of fans, and still they are struggling to make ends meet.

Some actors and musicians and footballers get lucky, and good for them. 

But these billionaires? Who seem to be taking over the U.S. government? What are they actually doing?

I don't have a particular point here. Except that the world has shifted dramatically from what I grew up expecting. And I don't like it.

And a big part of me says I should stop listening to/reading the news. Wouldn't that be nice?

90. Project 365

I posted this a while back on FB, but I'll post it here too, for posterity. Here's what I wrote on FB:

Almost 18 years ago, I completed my first photo-a-day project (Project 365), which I posted daily on Flickr. Back in December, I started my fifth such project—after a gap of 13 years. Here it is so far, 88 days in. It's simple enough: take a photo every day, and post it, with a bit of explanation of why or what. I find it a fascinating (I guess I'm easily fascinated!) record of the mostly tiny moments that make up my days, my life.

Since then, a couple of weeks have passed. And yes, more pictures! 

I'm up to day 107 now—almost a third of the way along. Some days I completely forget to take a picture—days when I'm busy at home, with a work project usually (currently: editing a book about an early woman lawyer)—and then have to find something, anything, in my immediate surroundings to document (a cat, for example; cats are easy targets). 

It's strange and lovely to go back, even all the way back to 2008 and the first Project 365, and remember that very moment, where I was, what I was struck by to take that shot. I do sometimes wish I were better at embracing moments without the aid of a photograph. But I'm also glad I have all these photos to remind me of the wealth of my experience.

Here are the photos I've taken the last seven days, complete with their Flickr captions:

Trail closed. But that doesn’t stop us,
outlaws that we are. Or judging from the
well-defined groove in the grass, others either.

Morning light on shells. This sight made me happy
this morning as I started one of two poetry
Zooms for today. Sometimes it’s the little things…

New books. I'm not much into shopping (just take a look
at my closet)—except when it comes to books. The subtlest
recommendation, and I'm off to the internet putting in an order.
These books arrived yesterday and today. The one on the bottom
was a freebie (two copies, actually): a gorgeous book about
the photographer Edward Steichen and his delphiniums, which
I was fortunate enough to proofread for the Eastman Museum
in Rochester, NY, for an upcoming exhibition. The next one up
is a book of poetry, by a poet I admire. The one above is
Stefan Zweig (1881–1942), writing about the vanishing of his
world—recommended by a guest on Ezra Klein's podcast, for its
present-day pertinence. I certainly do feel like the world I've
always relied on has vanished. Americanah is a novel my SIL
said she loved. And I'm not exactly sure where I heard about
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This (it's about
Gaza), but it sounded important. Winner of prizes, but the very title
is so provocative. So yeah: I do shop. Bur pretty much only for books.
And groceries. Gotta eat.

Oh Canada. This guy was very calm—though he never
took that eye off me as I made my way past on my afternoon walk.

Morro Bay. Spent the day visiting friends in Morro Bay and Cambria.
I always enjoy spending time in this corner of the California coast.
It feels quieter and more secluded than our own corner.
We started our visit with a walk at Cloisters Beach. 

Pinnacles High Peaks. Three of us went for an 8.5-mile hike
today at Pinnacles National Park. The forecast was for
90-degree heat in the afternoon, so we got going from our house
at 6:30, arriving at 7:30. It was delightfully cool as we set out,
and although it did grow gradually warmer during the course
of the morning (we finished up around 12:30), we were perfectly
comfortable. We saw many wildflowers, some chipmunks and squirrels,
many turkey vultures (though the condors remained tucked away
waiting for afternoon thermals), and the best: a foot-long southwestern
pond turtle in a small stream; a beautifully patterned frog, in the same
stream; and a western rattlesnake stretched across the trail. Several women
were taking a big detour (into the stream) to avoid it, but we figured,
what? it's not coiled, it's just enjoying the sun—no problem.
So we marched right past it, and sure enough, although it flicked its tongue
at us (tasting us), it didn't seem to care one whit. I bet that sun on its
long body felt sooooooo good! 

Great egret. A frog pond visitor. From the
sound of the frogs singing in the evenings, s/he
is probably finding plenty to snack on.

89. Ross Gay and Gwendolyn Brooks, poets

Yesterday on FB I ran into a poem by Ross Gay, a sparkle of a man whose writing I enjoy so much. 

Sorrow Is Not My Name

                    —after Gwendolyn Brooks

No matter the pull toward brink. No
matter the florid, deep sleep awaits.
There is a time for everything. Look,
just this morning a vulture
nodded his red, grizzled head at me,
and I looked at him, admiring
the sickle of his beak.
Then the wind kicked up, and,
after arranging that good suit of feathers
he up and took off.
Just like that. And to boot,
there are, on this planet alone, something like two
million naturally occurring sweet things,
some with names so generous as to kick
the steel from my knees: agave, persimmon,
stick ball, the purple okra I bought for two bucks
at the market. Think of that. The long night,
the skeleton in the mirror, the man behind me
on the bus taking notes, yeah, yeah.
But look; my niece is running through a field
calling my name. My neighbor sings like an angel
and at the end of my block is a basketball court.
I remember. My color's green. I'm spring.

                    —for Walter Aikens

Well, that just got me curious about the epigraph: "after Gwendolyn Brooks." Fortunately, others have gotten curious too, and I quickly found an essay in the Paris Review that unlocks the secret. In it, the author references the poem that Gay was responding to:

To The Young Who Want To Die

Sit down. Inhale. Exhale.
The gun will wait. The lake will wait.
The tall gall in the small seductive vial
will wait will wait:
will wait a week: will wait through April.
You do not have to die this certain day.
Death will abide, will pamper your postponement.
I assure you death will wait. Death has
a lot of time. Death can
attend to you tomorrow. Or next week. Death is
just down the street; is most obliging neighbor;
can meet you any moment.

You need not die today.
Stay here—through pout or pain or peskyness.
Stay here. See what the news is going to be tomorrow.

Graves grow no green that you can use.
Remember, green's your color. You are Spring.

I have had less luck learning who Walter Aikens is. A young friend of Gay's, perhaps, who was battling his own sorrows. No telling, and not important—except for the connection that the two of them had (the poem was published in 2011) and hopefully still have. 

88. Death

The past two days I've kept running into death. 

In a sense, lately, death is all around me—in the continued (eternal) absence of our Milo. No more early morning walk, no more breakfast to be portioned out (kibble + a few spoonfuls of canned food), no more exuberant greeting when we arrive home from running errands, no more afternoon walk, no more tossing of the increasingly vanishing dog toy (his last two, a llama and a red panda, remain rather sadly intact), no more sticks thrown, no more river swims, no more evening meal (which increasingly became whatever he would eat, chiefly roast chicken, and salmon skin when we had salmon for dinner, and freeze-dried duck), no more neck scritches, no more sigh-and-thump as he settled onto his bed by ours. No more forbidden licking of my toes. 

But we've got his little shrine—his ashes-containing box, his consolement cards, his pawprint pendants, his fur—to which I've added a calendar I made, for 2012, of his first year, and I rotate the pages every so often. Little Milo flying along a path! Milo standing tall at Sonora Pass! Milo chewing on his chew toys! Milo at SEATAC on his way to his new home! I intend to make a little book from some of the many, many photos I took of him over the years. He was my muse, my joy.

As a friend commented the other day after attending the memorial service for a good friend of hers, "And of course, the unsolved question of what happens to dead people, where are they, where do they go? They seem to suddenly just disappear." Same goes for dogs. 

Cats too. We'll be finding out, but hopefully not too soon. That said, I have lost cats—four of them—but only one of those did we "put to sleep." That cat, the empress Tisiphone, I cried buckets over. But that was thirty years ago. The pain has dulled to fond remembrance. (The other three disappeared in the neighborhood. We found the remains of one—the victim of a coyote. I know: we should keep them indoors. I won't argue my case for not doing that here...)

So, the past two days:

On Sunday, my writing group received word that our leader couldn't attend our Monday meeting because her partner was in the hospital, so we were postponing for a week. Yesterday (Monday) evening, she wrote that he had died, at 10:10 p.m. (There is something so poignant about that precise time.) This evening she wrote that we will still meet next week, that "I am in shock but still walking around." 

That's the strangeness of it, isn't it? You still walk around. You have to: go to the bathroom, pour a glass of water, make your way to a chair in the sunshine where you cry, eat some food. Somehow, you take yourself to the store and buy groceries (I'd probably go straight to the Ben & Jerry's freezer). You keep going. You just do.

Today, I read on FB of two more deaths: my Antioch U friend Consuelo's kitty Bear Boy, and the longtime companion of the mother of another Antioch friend, Monique. It was moving to me to read their tributes to these important beings in their lives.

Then there's Country Joe McDonald, whose "Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag" was so pertinent then, and seems just as pertinent now. He died on March 7, age 84.

And today my friend Nina's computer died! She's getting a new, modern, much lighter one, and fortunately she had backed up the more important files. But still: even transitioning to a new laptop requires adjustment. Death is never easy.

But the biggest death these past few days happened just a few hours ago: my Howler friend Sherilyn's father, Ron, who suffered a serious stroke nine years ago, finally slipped to the other side. All these nine years, three of us—Sherilyn, Kim, and I—have met pretty much every morning (travel aside) to spend ninety minutes writing or in other creative pursuits (and pretty much all day on weekends). This evening at 6:06 she texted: "Ron has died. He passed away comfortably in his sleep about 15 minutes ago. Thank you for supporting us."

It's strange how in the chest that simple statement hit me. All these years, Sherilyn has been flying back and forth every week between Burbank, where she and her husband, Grant, live, and Santa Clara, where Ron and her mom, Cindy, live, to take care of him. There were caregivers early on, but then the pandemic hit and caregiving became a two-person gig. Though it was mainly Sherilyn on watch. Grant would come up every so often to help out. It was a small, but twenty-four-hour, operation, keeping Ron going.

And now he's gone. 

Just this last week, they signed up with hospice. Ron stopped eating several weeks ago; it was but a matter of time. And hospice seemed to spark Cindy into action, making plans. She announced, for example, that she'll be selling the house and moving back to Hawaii, where she's from. She started going through Ron's shirts. Hospice seemed to provide an opening, a new horizon.

And now he's gone. And the new horizon can swim more clearly into view.

I'm excited for Sherilyn, and for Cindy. Sad too, of course, but Ron really went away with that stroke. 

I asked Sherilyn if she'd send a picture of Ron, because I'd never seen one. I had this vague image of a man lying in bed, a big man, an Asian American man, but I didn't really know what he looked like. She sent this:

Bellagio Hotel, Las Vegas, 12/2014—a couple of years before the stroke. "We have tons but the fastest search was 'Las Vegas,'" she wrote. "He loved Vegas! Proof he's from Hawaii!"

He looked like a big happy bear of a man. I'm so sorry he spent his last almost ten years living the diminished life he did. 

I trust Sherilyn and Cindy won't mind that I featured them here. It's just so strange for the death of someone I never even knew to hit me so hard. But in a way, I've lived with the three of them for nine years now. Their story, what little I know of it, is in my own heart.

And I will finish with something my cousin Kris wrote (on FB), in response to this post:

My feelings on death swing… a pendulum, accepting it as the course of all things. An order, a relief, the completion of the wondrous circle... then the arc unfolds personal emptiness and loss. I sit in sadness. Heavy. The weight makes it hard to breathe. And hard not to. Gradually the feelings file into a stack. Sleep seems to help the stack and breathing. Laughter always helps when it's organic. Best to go outside where the world's bigger. Breathing is easier and you see the light and souls in life...

87. Travel plans

Thanks to Mr. Trump's war and rising gas prices, I was goosed out of my normal lethargy when it comes to booking airplane tickets, and over the last few days I, yes, booked airplane tickets. In June, to Berlin and Oslo; in August, to Brazil. 

It feels good to have that done. 

It feels good, too, to have a respite from this benighted country to look forward to. 

Not that I'll stop looking at the news, but still. Soon I'll have entirely new universes to explore. Berlin: WWII, the Cold War with its Wall, jazz clubs, walking in the Havelhöhenweg, and more. Oslo: spending time with family and revisiting favorite spots—the Vigeland sculpture park, the Fram polar exploration museum, the new library, the opera house . . . and more! Brazil: São Paulo and then the Pantanal. 

Here are a few pictures of the Pantanal. It's a vast wetland I first heard about from a Brazilian fellow traveler in Botswana almost thirty years ago, and it's stuck in my head all this time. Lately, I see more and more stories about its diminishment due to climate change—fires, drought. I am crossing my fingers that this August will be a good season for seeing birds and wildlife—including giant river otters, giant anteaters, jaguars, yacaré caiman, hyacinth macaws, and 650 other bird species. 

Humankind is destroying this planet. The government of the country I happen to live in doesn't seem to give a shit. I feel a need to visit the wondrous places while I still can—by which I mean both me, physically, while I can still move around; and while these places still exist, because they won't for long, at this rate.

I am looking forward to my travels. They help me stay buoyed up.

I despair for what the youngest generations will be coming up against. It won't be easy. Even if we have the most innovative, forward-thinking people in charge. Which recent votes have shown isn't particularly likely.

86. This is just to say...

Today's poetry group prompt involved parodying an existing poem. One of the examples was William Carlos William's "This Is Just to Say." 

I have eaten 
the plums 
that were in 
the icebox

and which 
you were probably 
saving 
for breakfast

Forgive me 
they were delicious 
so sweet 
and so cold

And here's a representative parody:

Variations on a Theme

Kenneth Koch

1

I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting.

2

We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.

3

I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the next ten years.
The man who asked for it was shabby
and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.

4

Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.
Forgive me. I was clumsy and
I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!

Our prompter today, Karla, also mentioned that way back when, Garrison Keillor hosted the poet Billy Collins on his Prairie Home Companion, and they had fun with this very same poem. Here is one of the some thirty-four parodies they offered up:

BC: Listen to this poem—

I stand by the window,
Listening to dogs
Barking in the cold rain
That falls like vinegar.
A brown leaf reminds me of my grandmother.
And eating gooseberries in the Piazza Navona
That summer of our first love.

—It's a poem written by a computer!

GK: How can you tell?

BC: By the little sprocket holes on both sides.

(Mind you, this was performed in 2002. But still: AI anyone?)

It (by which I mean WCW's original) is a perfect poem, really. Parody it all you like—you can't defeat it.

But finally, here's a short film about Williams (1883–1963). You really can't help but love him. At least, I can't.

85. Michael Pollan, conscious human being

My title is a little tongue in cheek, but not much. Michael Pollan, of course, is an author, starting with Second Nature: A Gardener's Education (1991) and including most famously The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World (2001), The Omnivore's Dilemma (2006), and This Is Your Mind on Plants (2021), about psychedelics. As his interests have evolved he's become a philosopher, and lately has been delving into the question of consciousness—as in his brand-new book A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness. Because of this book, he's been popping up in interviews, on podcasts and on TV. So I thought I'd feature a few of those here, plus a couple of ancillary references.

Stephen Colbert spoke with Pollan last week:

He was also Terry Gross's guest recently on Fresh Air, and the guest of David Marchese on the New York Times's "The Interview":

In the first video above, Pollan mentions a 1974 essay by Thomas Nagel titled "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" which I happily found online, and you too can read it here.

But finally, what really brought me here was the poem by e.e. cummings that Colbert recites in the second video, which a FB friend of mine, Leslie, mentioned in her daily post. She also quotes a different poem of cummings's. So I will end with both those. You're welcome!

[since feeling is first]

since feeling is first

who pays any attention 

to the syntax of things

will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool

while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,

and kisses are a better fate 

than wisdom

lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry

—the best gesture of my brain is less than

your eyelids’ flutter which says

we are for each other: then

laugh, leaning back in my arms

for life’s not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

[you shall above all things be glad and young]

you shall above all things be glad and young

For if you’re young,whatever life you wear

it will become you;and if you are glad

whatever’s living will yourself become.

Girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need:

i can entirely her only love

whose any mystery makes every man’s

flesh put space on;and his mind take off time

that you should ever think,may god forbid

and (in his mercy) your true lover spare:

for that way knowledge lies,the foetal grave

called progress,and negation’s dead undoom.

I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing

than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance

84. Pantoums

Thursday is my poetry day: every week, a number of us from all over the country, plus Peru, meet in the afternoon to read some prompt poems, write for half an hour, and share. These past few weeks too, Thursday mornings at 9, I've been meeting with six others, led by Kathryn Petruccelli (who has various outlets: the blog Poet Roar, the Substack Ask the Poet, and recently a podcast, Melody or Witchcraft), in a generative workshop that she calls Small Observances, Big Ideas, or SOBI. 

Today, coincidentally, both groups ended up focusing on a poetic form, originally devised in 15th-century Malaya, known as the pantoum. The basic idea is that in each four-line stanza (after the first), you take the second and fourth lines of the preceding stanza, and they become the first and third lines of the next. The new second and fourth lines are fresh. And on and on you go, until the end, when the third and first lines of the very first stanza become the second and last lines of that final stanza. Clear as mud? 

Here's the poem we used as our guide in the SOBI group this morning, with the lines numbered so you can see the pattern:

Naturalization

Leah Silvieus

1     When I came to this country, I was reborn
2     with a pistol in my palm.
3     They called me a natural:
4     That bullseye, gorgeous!

2     With a pistol in my palm
5     the weight like a future son,
4     that bullseye gorgeous
6     like summer sunlight on stainless steel.

5     The weight like a future son
7     dreaming blood on my hands—
6     like summer sunlight on stainless steel,
8     bright like Christ.

7     Dreaming blood on my hands,
3     they called me. A natural,
8     right? Like Christ,
1     when I came to: This country I was, reborn.

Here's another one. As the poet River Dandelion says, the pantoum is a powerful vehicle for exploring intergenerational stories. 

Halcyon Kitchen

Kiandra Jimenez

Granma cautioned in a kitchen off Century and Hoover:
Never throw your hair away. Burn it. Till yellow
cornbread bakes and greens release pot liquor,
her garnet-polished fingers unraveled each cornrow.

Never throw your hair away, burn it till yellow
flames flick up and turn orange, blue. Overhead,
her garnet-polished fingers unraveled each cornrow,
wrestling. I reminisce, standing over her deathbed.

Rain picks up and turns ocher, blue. Unsaid
were simple things. Oxtail stew and yam
recipes I recollect, standing over her deathbed.
She smoked Mores leaning in the kitchen doorjamb,

when simple things — oxtail stew and yam
recipes — were not measured nor written. Cooking while
she smoked Mores leaning in the kitchen doorjamb,
her left hand in the profound curve of her hip. She’d say, Chile,

ma recipes are not measured nor written. Cooking while
I sat alongside the stove waiting for the hot comb, meantime
her left hand in the profound curve of her hip, she’d say, Chile,
I may be dead and gone, but you mark my words. Sometimes

I sat alongside the stove waiting for the hot comb, meantime
I loved watching her smoking, cooking, talking with More fingers,
I may be dead and gone, but you’ll mark my words. This time,
she is quiet. I hold maroon-polished hands as her soul lifts, waits, lingers.

I loved watching her smoking, cooking, talking with More fingers.
Halcyon rain picks up, soaks me blue. Nothing unsaid.
She is quiet. I hold maroon-polished hands as her soul lifts, waits, lingers,
restful. I’m remembering — standing over her deathbed.

It seems to be a good vehicle for grief as well, with its obsessive circling. That was the subject of one of the two I wrote today, which I'll share here. It adheres to the strict form, by which I mean no monkeying with wording (though monkeying with punctuation is perfectly okay). For my second assay, I took a lot of liberties with the form. But I'll leave that one for another day.

Grief

Fragile solace of memories.
You are a ghost now,
here, not here,
wavering shadow in bright sunlight.

You are a ghost now,
sadness a sheer blanket:
wavering shadow in bright sunlight,
salt sponge of tears—

sadness a sheer blanket
to be lifted, somehow—
salt sponge of tears
urging the heart to recall,

to be lifted somehow,
here, not here,
urging the heart to recall
(fragile solace of) memories.

Book Report: Notes from No Man's Land

5. Eula Biss, Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays (2009) (2/22/26)

I'm not even sure what to say about this eclectic collection of essays. They explore geography, and race, and identity in America—Biss writing as a white woman, but also imagining, considering, other identities. 

The book comprises five sections. "Before" begins the volume, about Alexander Graham Bell and his telephone, which led to telephone poles that studded this country, from which Black men were eventually—conveniently—hung. In "New York" Biss explores various aspects of race from a personal viewpoint—through stories of her mother, who embraced African culture and married more than one Black man; through the story of an in vitro pregnancy that resulted in twins, one white, one Black, and the grandmother who wished to have a relationship with her Black grandchild; through her own experiences as a young teacher in Harlem; and in an examination of her relationship to New York City, through the lens of Joan Didion's "Goodbye to All That." In "California" she discusses her experience covering "Black news" in San Diego, an extended stay living and learning Spanish in Mexico, and the "fantasy" that is California. "Midwest" takes us to the "utopia" town of Buxton, a model of amicable race relations built in 1900, a ghost town by 1920; the college town of Iowa City; the metaphorical no-man's land, a place (or time) betwixt and between; and an exploration of identity via the vehicle (inherited and yet also somewhat arbitrary) that is our name. In "After" she takes on being sorry, both on a personal level and as a national attempt to right wrongs.

In "Three Songs of Salvage" she writes of being taken by her mother 

to the bembés where the orishas were called down. We watched the drummers sweat and the dancers shake, and we ate salty beans and rice with the other kids. We listened to the dancers sing and we sang, when we sang, in a language we did not understand. The more distance my mother put between herself and what she knew, between her mind and the words it understood, the closer she felt to the imponderable.
     The smell of cigar smoke came up through the floorboards every night in those days. I closed the red metal grate in the floor, but the smell at night was not as bad as in the afternoons, which stank of goat skin stretched on the barn to dry. I fell asleep to the distant sound of drums, which I was not always entirely sure was the distant sound of drums. Rain, blood in the body, explosions in the quarry, and frogs are all drums.
    . . . I know now that I left home and I left the drums but I didn't leave home and I didn't leave the drums. Sewer plates, jackhammers, subway trains, cars on the bridge, and basketballs are all drums.

Biss explores complex ideas and associations with great intelligence. And now that I've looked for her more recent books, I realize I read—and very much enjoyed—another, Having and Being Had, about (loosely) capitalism. I wonder what she's exploring now. I'll keep a lookout.

83. February 19ths past

A few photos from my Flickr archive (long since abandoned, though I've recently reemerged there with a new Project 365, my fifth). Just some memories, from February 19ths long ago (2008–2011). I was hoping Milo would show up, and there he was! I want to keep remembering him here. 

I've linked the years to the associated Flickr page, for description and comments.

2008

2009

2010

2011

82. Fear: a lexicon

I'm taking a six-session writing class with the effervescent Priscilla Long (author of The Writer's Portable Mentor, Dancing with the Muse in Old Age [Priscilla is 83, and happily so], and others, including her just-out collection of poems, Cartographies of Home). Our task is to write three essays/short stories, do daily writing-in-place (practicing observation), imitate certain sentence types, compile a scrapbook, and create a lexicon based on one of our pieces. 

This time I am going to try to finish an abecedarian I started ages ago, but gaps remain. I will fill the gaps! Plus, the essay is about fear, and my whole attitude toward fear has shifted since I began the essay—what with my husband's cancer diagnosis, what with the second coming of Trump. Fear has more of a presence now in my life than when I first tackled this ABC . . .

I just now sat down and came up with 100 entries related to the notion of fear. I present it here. If I missed anything (how could I not?), please let me know! (Can you match this image with its listing below?)

1. Dread
2. Terror
3. Panic
4. Trepidation
5. Anxiety
6. Alarm
7. Worry
8. Horror
9. Dismay
10. Apprehension
11. Phobia
12. Snakes (ophidiophobia)
13. Bees (apiphobia, melissophobia)
14. Clowns (coulrophobia)
15. Thunder and lightning (astraphobia)
16. Dogs (cynophobia)
17. Fight
18. Flight
19. Fear of failure
20. Dementia
21. Insects (entomophobia)
21. Sharks (galeophobia)
22. The dark (nyctophobia)
23. Becoming old and infirm
24. Debilitation
25. Abandonment
26. Rejection
27. Water (aquaphobia)
28. Loud sounds (ligyrophobia, phonophobia)
29. Amygdala
30. Hypothalamus
31. Prefrontal cortex
32. Chemistry
33. Hippocampus
34. Periaqueductal gray (PAG)
35. Glutamate
36. Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)
37. Endocannabinoids
38. PTSD
39. Neurotransmitters
40. Dopamine
41. Neuroscience
42. Treatment
43. Psychotherapy
44. Unpleasant subjective emotional state
55. Pain
56. Agitation
57. Spiders (arachnophobia)
58. Enclosed spaces (claustrophobia)
59. Heights (acrophobia)
60. Injections and needles (trypanophobia)
61. Germs and dirt (mysophobia)
62. Crowds (agoraphobia)
63. Flying (aerophobia)
64. Deep breathing
65. Mindfulness
66. Visualization
67. Anatidaephobia (fear of a duck or goose watching you)
68. Meavehiclutintinnabulaphobia (fear of car alarm)
69. Derivatiapostcalvinaphobia (fear of someone using your idea first)
70. Arachibutyrophobia (fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth
71. Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia (fear of long words)
72. No fear, no death (Thich Nhat Hanh)
73. No mud, no lotus (TNH)
74. Forget Everything And Run
75. Face Everything And Rise
76. “Life is a daring adventure or nothing” (Helen Keller)
77. “Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision.” (Winston Churchill)
78. Half Dome
79. Perfection
80. Madness
81. Bankruptcy
82. Debt
83. Pennilessness
84. Being without love
85. Being alone/lonely (monophobia)
86. Megalohydrothalassophobia (fear of large underwater creatures, rather than of the water itself)
87. Airports
88. Ballpoint/fountain pens (stylophobia)
89. Hedgehogs (skatzochoirophobia)
90. Trauma
91. Injury
92. Dragonflies (dragoferophobia)
93. Yellow (xanthophobia)
94. Fish (ichthyophobia)
95. Nature (thalassophobia)
96. Falling (basophobia)
97. Snow (chionophobia)
98. Heat (thermophobia)
99. The number 8 (octophobia)
100. Death (thanatophobia)

You know this list could go on and on and on. Besides xanthophobia, for instance, there's erythrophobia, melanophobia, chrysophobia, cyanophobia, rhodophobia, kastanophobia, prasinophobia, leukophobia, and porphyrophobia—fear of red, black, gold, blue, pink, brown, green, white, and purple—never mind general chrom(at)ophobia, fear of colors altogether. What? I can see being afraid of snakes and sharks, but colors? What did they ever do to a person? But, mine is not to reason why these irrational fears exist. Mine is just to explore them. From my own point of view, limited as it is. That's what essays are all about.

81. Octavio Paz, poet

I decided to kick off today's Wordle post in my little FB group, and so I went in search of a poem. I thought, in the spirit of Bad Bunny's halftime show the other day, what about something in Spanish? So I googled Octavio Paz, and found this (notated as "for Roger Caillois"; translated by Eliot Weinberger):

Wind, Water, Stone

Water hollows stone,
wind scatters water,
stone stops the wind.
Water, wind, stone.

Wind carves stone,
stone's a cup of water,
water escapes and is wind.
Stone, wind, water.

Wind sings in its whirling,
water murmurs going by,
unmoving stone keeps still.
Wind, water, stone.

Each is another and no other:
crossing and vanishing
through their empty names:
water, stone, wind.

As for the Spanish, a little more searching, and it came:

Viento, Agua, Piedra

El agua horada la piedra,
el viento dispersa el agua,
la piedra detiene al viento.
Agua, viento, piedra.

El viento esculpe la piedra,
la piedra es copa del agua,
el agua escapa y es viento.
Piedra, viento, agua.

El viento en sus giros canta,
el agua al andar murmura,
la piedra inmóvil se calla.
Viento, agua, piedra.

Uno es otro y es ninguno:
entre sus nombres vacíos
pasan y se desvanecen
agua, piedra, viento.

How beautiful. A reminder of how everything, always, is moving, changing, vanishing, becoming.

Book Report: Rubbernecker

4. Belinda Bauer, Rubbernecker (2013) (2/9/26)

My sister-in-law recommended this book to me, and since I failed at my N book (a brief comment on that below), I decided this time it was okay to break protocol and read a random letter of the alphabet, to wit, R. 

The book, set in Cardiff, Wales, is a mystery—there are murders—but it's much more than that, as it delves into what's in our hearts, what we want to understand about life, and possibilities for connection. It follows several threads, beginning with a car crash whose driver (we soon learn) ends up on the "coma ward" of the local hospital. As traffic inches past the scene of the crash, a young man leaves the car his mother is driving to get a closer look. This is Patrick, who has Asperger's syndrome. Ten years before, he lost his father in a hit-and-run accident, caused in part by Patrick refusing to hold his hand while crossing the road (he can't stand to be touched, and his father knew it). Now, Patrick wants to understand what happened when his father died, where he went, and he thinks the key may be learning about human anatomy—so he enrolls in the anatomy lab of the nearby medical school. Here, he and four fellow students spend 22 weeks disassembling a cadaver, Number 19. Meanwhile, we sometimes flash to the coma ward, where we are made privy to the thoughts and feelings of one of the patients—who as things progress begins to "emerge" from his disability.  

In the course of the cadaver disarticulation, Patrick finds evidence (in 19's throat) that suggests he might have been murdered. By now Patrick has abandoned the notion that he might understand death, but he figures he can solve this mystery. He also finds out (through a bit of B&E) who 19 was (you will probably not be surprised to learn that he's the original crash victim, also the patient whose thoughts we've been privy to on the ward). Why would someone murder him? Patrick finds accomplices of sorts in one of his fellow students and in 19's daughter, whom he seeks out. And yes, he does figure out who is culpable—and almost gets killed himself as a result.

What makes the story so compelling is Patrick's condition—his awkwardness with other people but also the clarity of his thinking. He doesn't get bogged down in sentimentality and unreality. In this, Bauer combines various material and behavioral quirks to give Patrick substance. He makes for an interesting mirror to the ways in which those around him interact. In the course of the book, Patrick makes some progress in learning how to get along with others. Which makes it a story about relationship as well.

I enjoyed the book, though it took me a while to understand how the various plot elements wove together. One, about an unserious nurse, never quite did, except (I decided) to illustrate how blind "normal" people can be to what's right in front of them—something you can't accuse Patrick of. 

As for the abandoned N book—it was Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, which I know people love, but I guess I just wasn't in the mood for a flight of magical fantasy into below-parts regions of London. Or I wasn't in the mood for Gaiman's cleverness: his writing felt a little (or a lot) too self-satisfied, and far too two-dimensional. I only got a quarter of the way in, but it just wasn't picking up. So: another abandoned book. It's getting to be a habit. But better to realize I just don't care for a book than suffer through it. Right?

Now, I'll scan my shelves for another N book. Back to the alphabet

80. Ashley M. Jones and Mary Szybist, poets

We howlers met today, as we do more or less weekly, to discuss a poem from the anthology You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World (Milkweed Editions, 2024). The poem that rose up for discussion was this one, by Ashley M. Jones.

Lullaby for the Grieving

at the Sipsey River

make small steps.
in this wild place
there are signs of life
everywhere.
sharp spaces, too:
the slip of a rain-glazed rock
against my searching feet.
small steps, like prayers—
each one a hope exhaled
into the trees. please,
let me enter. please, let me
leave whole.
there are, too, the tiny sounds
of faraway birds. the safety
in their promise of song.
the puddle forming, finally,
after summer rain.
the golden butterfly
against the cave-dark.
maybe there are angels here, too—
what else can i call the crown of light
atop the leaves?
what else can i call
my footsteps forward,
small, small, sure?

Jones is the poet laureate of Alabama, 35 years old, author of three poetry collections. Two poems of hers are featured on the Poetry Foundation website, including this one:

Hymn of Our Jesus & the Holy Tow Truck

after Mary Szybist

And yes, of course, I next had to investigate Mary Szybist. This poem of hers delighted me, partly because it's an abecedarian, partly because it's about jigsaw puzzles, partly because it's about girls chatting.

Girls Overheard While Assembling a Puzzle

Are you sure this blue is the same as the
blue over there? This wall’s like the
bottom of a pool, its
color I mean. I need a
darker two-piece this summer, the kind with
elastic at the waist so it actually
fits. I can’t
find her hands. Where does this gold
go? It’s like the angel’s giving
her a little piece of honeycomb to eat.
I don’t see why God doesn’t
just come down and
kiss her himself. This is the red of that
lipstick we saw at the
mall. This piece of her
neck could fit into the light part
of the sky. I think this is a
piece of water. What kind of
queen? You mean
right here? And are we supposed to believe
she can suddenly
talk angel? Who thought this stuff
up? I wish I had a
velvet bikini. That flower’s the color of the
veins in my grandmother’s hands. I
wish we could
walk into that garden and pick an
X-ray to float on.
Yeah. I do too. I’d say a
zillion yeses to anyone for that.

Finally, Ashley M. Jones had this to say about her "Lullaby": "I wrote this poem at the Sipsey Wilderness near that same river in Alabama. I didn’t expect to write about my grief process, but it seemed the Wilderness was showing me that my grief for my father was very similar to the difficult hiking path to the river. I’m not an experienced hiker. I was afraid of ticks and injury. This large, all-encompassing grief is new to me, too. I’m afraid, constantly, of its prick and haunt. But there are angels and carriers of light, and I know my dad is one of them now."

I love discovering new writers, whether of poetry or prose. These two please me no end.

79. Goodbye Milo

And so this evening we bade farewell to our beautiful boy Milo. A mobile vet, Carrie Nagel, came at half past six, and we sat on the floor next to him and talked for quite a while about what might be going on, about potential options, but slowly we circled into the clear fact that he's just not thriving. And so David and I gave her the go-ahead.

Here are a few last photos (all from today) of our sweet sweet boy. We will miss him so so so very much.

Thanks to Carrie for taking such good caring care of all of us.

And I will finish with Ted Kooser, a poem I've posted here before, but this time it's real.

Death of a Dog

The next morning I felt that our house

had been lifted away from its foundation

during the night, and was now adrift,

though so heavy it drew a foot or more

of whatever was buoying it up, not water

but something cold and thin and clear,

silence riffling its surface as the house

began to turn on a strengthening current,

leaving, taking my wife and me with it,

and though it had never occurred

to me until that moment, for fifteen years

our dog had held down what we had

by pressing his belly to the floors,

his front paws, too, and with him gone

the house had begun to float out onto

emptiness, no solid ground in sight.

We'll always love you, Milo. Always and forever. This is how I will remember you: flying free, full of joy!