April 14, 2021
Gleanings
- Squill is the common name for several species of Scilla and, ‘though by no means the earliest spring wildflower it has, perhaps, the most dramatic impact. T
- Streets are the biggest placemaking paradox, at once sites of immeasurable joy and delight and unspeakable violation.
- Last spring, when the weather warmed but the virus still raged out of control and playgrounds and parks were closed, I dreamed of a folding lawn chair.
- I miss speaking Serbian. / Since mom died, with a sense of vague unease, I am realizing I might be the last generation in my family to understand this language – anything from jokes and movie quotes to prose, poetry and song lyrics, might be lost for the generation I birthed.
- But here’s the truth revealed by the pandemic, in case I’d missed it: Change happens, no matter what. Time holds us to this promise.
- Does any of this really matter, though? Would we not expect media coverage of such an anachronistic institution to be, itself, anachronistic?
- And it was good to get out of the comfort zone, too, to let the dog make the decision, to be the follower for a change.
- When John cut the board we’re using to size, it was as though it was fresh cedar, the scent so spicy and beautiful that I remembered everything about the day it was made
- Sometimes when a time for something passes, it really passes and we can’t get to that initial moments of joy and happiness./ It changes into something else. Something more settled perhaps.
- This morning I was pleased to start the dishwasher, feed the cats, and otherwise start the day because it meant that my very unsettling dream of getting an abortion on a cruise ship had ended.
- So much of what might previously have gone on indoors, now happens outside.
- If my noting that Donoghue is efficient and competent seems like damning her with faint praise, well, you aren’t entirely wrong.
- I often was told my work was “too girly.” Now I embrace all of this but for a long time, I turned my anger inward, and wished I could “write like a man.”
- Missing or broken shelf pins in less-than-perfect cabinets are just a fact of life in old rentals and having lived in my fair share over the years, I’ve found simple replacements to be perennially useful.
- Your work can’t be rejected if you never submit anything. And, related to that, your work also cannot be accepted if you never submit anything.
- My uncle died, and Covid spread like wild-fire in my family in Iran…
- Those weren’t just a bunch of mistakes, I told them. They were the writing I was doing on the way to making a polished story.
- Everyday, in my head, while I walk, I am writing drafts.
- Wuxia, for the uninitiated (like me), is “a genre of Chinese literature featuring the lives and adventures of Chinese martial artists” (Leong)
- What I’m missing is the lovely, irritating, noisy, hateful, endearing throng of humanity in all its variety.
- In Mandarin, “chǎo miàn” means “stir-fried noodles.” It’s always made in a wok, and it’s still the best and quickest from one, says McKinnon. But the sheet pan makes it easier in a different way, in that we can add ingredients and walk away, letting the oven give the noodles their signature crisp, while we… break up a fight over Legos, or pour a glass of wine. (The latter, please.)
- I’m buoyed by the idea of a methodology of wonder and I want to sit with the idea of responses to questions rather than answers, how profound that is.
- And it’s also true, because both/and, that (as I have said before here, recently): spring is exhausting.
- None of this is permanent. Life, like the seasons, shifts, evolves and moves on. Cherry blossoms drift settling at my feet; eagles soaring like bold kites against blue skies; songbirds busy at living; chubby buds preparing to burst their delicate petals; daffodils bend and fade while tulips pierce their sword-like bodies from the warming soil bed.
- When my excuses ran out and when, as Martha Reeves sang, there’s nowhere to run to, baby, nowhere to hide, I felt motivated and found the tiniest modicum of courage to get started.
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