October 9, 2024
Gleanings
- In 1967, my mother was 22 and worked at a college library in Michigan. She took a payday loan to travel to Juarez, Mexico. That was very much my mother and how she took care of things. She was like Mrs. Dalloway in that way—she would buy the abortion herself.
- I like my hands. They’re weathered from the sun and from washing dishes and bathing babies and dipping sponges in clay water. They’re weathered from planting marigolds in the summer (to keep away the squirrels) and forgetting to wear gloves in the winter.
- I have been staring at these wounds for some time, these repairs, the way things hold together.
- I would like to be librarian again for another year if you can pay more.
- Watch for weirdness.
- But I had to cut them to get to the heart of the story. I called it “the lean edit” and most of it took place over a two-week period when I was watching a friend’s house and cat in Portland in July of 2023. I just sat down and looked at the book and envisioned the core story and went from there. But I also said to myself, “If I miss these characters when they’re gone I’ll put them back in,” but I didn’t. I really like my books to feel tightly crafted. I give the reader exactly the information they need.
- But the other day, I walked like a freak – with nothing plugged into my ears! Imagine. And wow, I realized I missed listening to my own thoughts. I listen to my thoughts all the time, while doing chores etc. But internal thoughts take a different shape when you’re out walking, especially in nature. I don’t know why that is, but it is.
- I am fascinated by all things miniature, especially handmade tiny food or tiny furniture. I remember yearning desperately for a dollhouse when I was a child, but we couldn’t afford one. Now I’d rather look at OTHER people’s dollhouses because we don’t have the space in our house, plus I’m leery about falling down the rabbit hole of making my own miniature furniture.
- And as an aside, it’s funny that we associate the novel, the Count, the bats, the entire thing with Halloween, with the dark seasons yet the story itself begins in May. The majority of the book’s action takes place in spring and summer—the seasons of new life and budding blossoms, warm evenings and dazzling sunlight—and only concludes in early November. A lot happens in a mere six months!
- Maybe I’m intrigued by East Germany because it represents, in nation format, what is true for all of us. We can’t return to the world we grew up in; it doesn’t exist anymore. We’re always in the present, moving forward, and always trying to hold on, in various ways, to parts of the past.
- I could tell you how I long for elder mentors in my life, and how the other day when I heard a peer lament, “I’m getting old and fat,” I found myself thinking about my Grandma who was old and fat, and her mom who was old and fat and her Mom’s Mom who was, well you get the picture, and how I thought that we really could use some more old and fat Grandmas around here.
- I’m not old, white, or rich. I don’t think I fit anyone’s expectations of a sailor, as evidenced by the looks of surprise I get when I bring it up to family, friends, and fellow writers. Their assumptions exhaust me, and I don’t always have the energy to explain how I began racing, how active the sport of sailing is on the Great Lakes, or the special atmosphere at Queen City. As a result, some people have known me for years and not known that I’ve sailed. In the mirror is a petite Asian woman with a round, serious face who looks like she spends more time in the library than doing rigorous physical activity. Peering closer, I see the bruises on my shins and my foul-weather gear hanging on hooks. But on occasion, someone corners me with their curiosity. “I hear that you sail,” they say, and the words spill out of me.
- Draw history through the eye of the longest needle in your basket, the twined thread—flax stem, inner bark of a pine, pounded nettle, strands of a coarse-haired sheep—and make the seam to hold the bag together. In it, the story of the blood clot, the blue lane of the pool, the tiny merganser chicks light as the air itself. This is yours, to give away or to keep.
- And so this weekend, I will think about that man who, on Oct 15, 2009, 10 days after his 58th birthday, met me when he fixed my fridge, changing his trajectory for the rest of his life. And mine with it.
- I guess all of this is to say—this house has been a place of love and accompaniment, heartbreak and endurance, transformation and steadfastness. We wish you all those things in this next season of its stewardship, and whatever more you would like it to be. Change is hard and constant and oh-so-beautiful. We hope this one wraps you in its arms and makes you feel cozy and known and nourished. We couldn’t imagine better people to pass on this little glowing box of light.
