What if I wrote, entirely for fun? What if it’s been a long day and I have been at times very angry and very tired but what nourishes me afterwards is writing? I couldn’t have conceived of such a feeling when I wrote the first words of my novel, but it feels more earned now. My life has been in a holding pattern for the past two weeks. I commute, work, sleep, repeat and all on my own too. I think a lot about work, productivity and my career but I haven’t written much about it publicly. Mostly, because it all still feels really new to me. Full time work outside of the house, nine hours every day, five days out of every week hasn’t been my reality for some time, but now it is. Work has been the center of my emotional, physical and spiritual axis for the past two weeks as I wait for important decisions to be made about my future. In that sweet pain of waiting, I found, that waiting is worth writing about.

In my waiting I have been staying with family and friends, learning other people’s routines and feeling genuine gratitude every day for the opportunities in my life. The opportunity to read often takes place still, whenever and wherever it can. I started reading The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles recently and although I was hoping to read it over the course of one week, the book itself is about waiting, and begs to be read that way. Sarah Woodruff, the titular character ostensibly waits every day for her lover to return. A regular Penelope, she captures the attention of Charles who is engaged to Ernestina, and I am promised that spicy romance drama ensues. I’m only about one fourth of the way through the book, which always feels like dipping a toe into the water of the novel’s world. I am beginning to hear the third person omniscient narrator in my head as he explains Victorian customs from a twentieth century lens. What is it that keeps me reading? Is it the promise of a juicy tryst or the mystery of Sarah herself? I think, it’s just the quality of the book. Set in coastal England, in a place where nothing much ever happens, I keep reading because well, what else do I have to do?

My manuscript on the other hand has been patiently waiting for me. I have a fancy new structural read going and re-reading my words again and again feels like another form of waiting. This edit is what stands between my novel and its reader, yet, it took me years to even get here. At the rate of two writing sessions every month, I’m making slow progress, but I am moving. Maybe waiting isn’t as static as it seems. Like how a hummingbird can stand still and float in the air, waiting feels like a vibration starting in my soul. I found I had enough distance recently, to reflect on the past six years, since time and the world had stopped. It feels like a very gradual awakening and I am not only considering the open flower petals in front of me, but I am looking forward to drinking deep of their nectar. Once I am done waiting.

I hate relaxing, it turns out. I started reading The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett on the beach with my in-laws and all I can remember is profound discomfort in what should have been a very comfortable environment. I lay on a beach towel, drying off dramatically but eventually my elbows gave way from holding my e-reader in my hands. I turned on my back and used the device to block out the sun but, after some time, my arms tired and I kept dropping it on my face. All this commotion and I finished reading the book mostly in bed, at home. This brings me to ask, how do people read on the beach? How do people enjoy sustained silence and inaction? Is everyone else born knowing how to relax? This is what I was thinking when I was introduced to Ana, Din, and the leviathans in Bennett’s extremely lush and inviting world. The story begins with a murder, naturally, as the novel is both fantasy and mystery, but the details of the murder are both sufficiently gory and inventive. I had no issue nestling comfortably in the mind of the narrator, Din, who plays Watson in this particular duo, as he investigates this murder but as the story began to play out and the clues revealed themselves, I found my mind bending in awkward positions as well, trying to accommodate the answers that were becoming obvious.

It’s harder than I thought to review a mystery novel, especially one that is so generous in its revelations. The pace is rollicking, perfect for a “beach read” and the characters are so likable they sometimes went a bit flat in my mind. Perhaps, the best review of this novel I can write is the way my AI chatbot responded to me as I fed it my notes for this article. “Why do you want a book to hurt you?” I named my chatbot Marion by the way, after my husband’s grandfather’s secretary, so this came off as particularly biting. I felt more comfortable in the Casa of Donoso’s nightmare realm than I did in Talagray, Marion reminded me. Bennett’s world is one where the magic comes from the earth. In this civilization humans have found ways to cultivate plants that can basically produce well, fantastical results. I really enjoyed reading about the augmentations that characters had given themselves in order to survive in this place where, once every wet season, leviathans from the ocean come to try to conquer their lands. If that sounds both hilarious and unsettling as a premise, then this is the right book for you. For me, I was interested in the way the mystery of the murder was solved so early on in the book and the way it laid breadcrumbs for a larger, overarching story. Yet, I’m not sure if this is the response, but I began rooting for the leviathans early on.

I kept waiting for something to happen on the beach. Watching the waves roll in was hypnotic but I couldn’t fall asleep with the bright sun glaring down on me. I sat, tense, in my beach chair to intercept any flies coming for the sweet blood in my ankles, but after only an hour I would retire to the house. I read The Tainted Cup fairly quickly and as I reached the end, I had that same feeling of waiting for something to happen. Even though the stakes are decidedly high with the wet season approaching, multiple murders happening and defenses being weakened but the way the mysteries would be brought up, the right clue would be found and immediately resolved left me a bit unsatisfied. What I am trying to say though, is it’s not Bennett, but rather me. What worked for me was his Holmes in the character of Ana Dolabra. I related to her frequent feeling of sensory overwhelm (she goes around wearing a blindfold in order to focus her other senses for instance) and her voracious appetite for books, but I wasn’t sure it was enough to follow her into the dark. Ultimately, Bennett was too kind and careful with my heart, the way the beach was too wide and welcoming. The characters are wonderful though, and the writing is funny. I would love for someone else, like my husband perhaps, to read the rest of the series because I really want to know who wins in the fight for humanity? I have always been team leviathan.

My time in Boston is already coming to an end as good news brings me and my family back to NYC. The cosmic irony of moving out of one apartment and then putting down a deposit on the one next door is not lost on me, but rather, celebrated. I wrote in my recent review about heroes who are beholden to answer the call, and I shall now take my place amongst them. Is there a lukewarm way to feel about NYC? Can I hide and coalesce when I need to? Or do I embrace the return, bigger, badder, and stronger? The future remains uncertain, but the smell of jasmine fills my mother's house this time of year. As we pick the blooms, late at night, after dinner, she reminsces about the apartments and leases of the past. Perhaps, this city is a graveyard to me, its ghosts haunting me where and when I last expect.

Reading during my long commutes, sneaking in minutes and pages where and when I can, changed the way I thought about books. No longer were the days of curling up in bed with the perfect ambience to fuel an hour long reading session. These days, a book read is a far more precious accomplishment. My husband and I have a book club of sorts where we take turns choosing a book for the both of us to read. I always give him a hard time with his choices—”not another fantasy” I said when he chose The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett, but I am always proven wrong. This book is perfectly paced with each detail feeling like an important clue in solving this murder mystery. Even though I read it in small, stolen bursts, it always satisfies.

I’m going to go out on a limb and congratulate myself on my writing efforts. This newsletter gets updated, my novel is a now a manuscript and I just had a great short story idea. (Imagine The Secret Garden but instead of Misselthwaite Manor it's East Village.) Slow and steady better win this race because it's the only way I have right now. Seeing the fruits of my labor though spurs me on to desperate acts like writing this newsletter entirely on my phone. I'm swirling in a vortex of change and even though Octavia Butler tells me that’s Change with a capital “c”, I anchor myself in my practices. My morning pages still get done, by hook or by crook, and though the circumstances are not ideal I find a way. Here's to the coming of a new season in life.

“Where did you hear that story?”

At first, she had asked it in a whisper, and I ignored her, focusing instead on the gory details.

“I heard several people walked in on her in the kitchen that night.” I was continuing to say when Bilal interrupted me.

“That’s not even the best part!” He was louder than that first whisper of dissent.

My …

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I reviewed some of the individual novels in this collection edited by Gary K. Wolfe but once I finished, I realized the selection and progression of the novels itself was meaningful. To start this review of American Science Fiction: Four Classic Novels (1968-1969) I have to tell the story of how I was out to dinner with my sibling and I said I had taken this book out of the library numerous times in the past year, as back-to-back as I could manage. “So you could finish it?” My sibling asked, reasonably, but instead I responded, “No, because I love it so much!” Indeed, reading the four short science-fiction novels in this collection felt like reading alongside a a friend as I believe Wolfe carefully chose these novels to be in conversation with each other.

My sibling was right though, I started the collection in June 2025 and read the last page of Emphyrio nearly a year later in April 2026. American Science Fiction: Four Classic Novels (1968-1969) included Past Master by R.A. Lafferty, Picnic on Paradise by Joanna Russ, Nova by Samuel R. Delaney and Emphyrio by Jack Vance. It’s actually the second volume in this edition of science fiction from the 1960s, but this book stands alone in its thematic message. In the year I spent reading it, I traveled from Renaissance England to the puppet’s dark homeland of Damar which is far from Earth in the universe. I brought an incompetent group of picnickers mostly to safety and went on a quest for the holy grail of outer space: a nova. At first, I thought of the novels individually as I couldn’t see a resemblance in these worlds or conflicts, but when I thought about what kept me coming back to this volume, it was the idea of a hero.

For example, Ghyl Tarvoke might be the last person who would have wanted to be in power, yet his identity as Emphyrio impels him to spread the truth in Jack Vance’s titular novel of the same name. Thomas More is recalled from the past in order to restore order to the chaotic planet of Astrobe. Even the devilishly dashing hero of Nova, Lorq Von Ray is hardly called to be a hero, unless space pirates can achieve that level of idolatory. In these novels, I saw again and again, the protagonists taking on missions that they did not choose. Maybe that strikes a particular chord in me as throughout the past year, I have had that feeling of both being chosen and also choice-less. After all, who really wants to be a hero? Sure, there may be parades and legends afterwards, but who survives to tell the tale? It’s not often the heroes themselves, but the scribes.

I was most looking forward to reading Nova as Samuel R. Delaney is my self-proclaimed favorite author. The story is often referred to as a space opera, perhaps for its dramatic tension taking place mostly in the form of relationships. Lorq and Prince Red’s heated rivalry, the love between his parents, his affection for Ruby, all of these tangled webs of connection drive the story as much as the quest for the Nova. Yet, the story is told by Mouse, the srynyx player. A srynyx is a sensory instrument that Mouse manipulates to create hyper-realistic smells like warm cinnamon on a rainy day or sights like the lover that was lost. It is the teller of the stories that lives on but it is the hero that lives on in collective memory. Their instruments are their voices.

What I realized when I had finished eight novels from the 1960s was nothing to do with science fiction history. Some of these novels were serialized and some were not. Some of these authors were young, though most of the stories did tend to be written later in life rather than sooner. I thought time was going to be the common thread between these novels, but time eluded me through space, just like in science-fiction. I’m not sure that I can be as conclusive as Alyx in Picnic on Paradise in my review of this collection, but the conversations that it sparked for me filled in a gap not in my knowledge of the genre, but in my knowledge of myself. Maybe it was meant for me to take my time with this collection. As I moved through uncomfortable seasons in my life, I kept coming back to these stories of reluctant heroes and sensory scribes. If life is to be different from fiction then it is in the plurality of human existence. We are called to be the hero, often times without our choice of quest, yet we must also simultaneously be the speaker too, so that we may be remembered.

I should have posted a note but that’s how fast the last three weeks slipped by. I felt like I was on a roller coaster and strapped in only by my teeth. On the other side of the ride though, I no longer live in New York City! I was back and forth for a while but now, the apartment is moved out of, and the lease has not been renewed. There isn’t anything to tie me to that place except the long and leisurely line of memories. My best friend asked me how I felt the last morning I spent in my apartment where I met and married my husband. We called it, “Honeymoon Hideaway”, and I guess I felt like I was finally coming back from the world’s longest vacation. I’m ready to live life now, but it starts with processing what just happened. Who’s up for a slideshow of pictures from my trip?

I help a lot of recent graduates buy their first suit or professional wardrobe these days. I know better than to ask, “what’s next?” but curiosity often gets the better of me. My clientele are a lot more impressive than me with answers like further education or employment, but I think I would have a lot of respect for anyone who, like me, also does not know. I am lucky to have a soft place to land in these difficult times. My life right now (aside from the long commutes and work days) looks like picking up pizza from the only place that’s ever been in town or getting the best manicure of my life for a suburban price. I am advised not to worry so much about what may or may not happen and I’ve always wondered, what would happen if I actually listened to good counsel?

I had heard that life is full of compromises, but now I am living it. In my reading life, I am eleven books behind in my yearly goal but as I think the narrator of Emphyrio by Jack Vance would believe, that’s not really the point. I nearly lost my thirty-six week reading streak, but I was saved by doing research for my monthly marriage meetings. If you ever wanted a manual on marriage, by the way, it exists, and it is called The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John M. Gottman and Nan Silver. I am fully in survival mode for writing and by that I mean, I maintain my morning pages practice on my phone or on my tablet if I have to. As for my fiction, it seems the real fiction is the time for it in my current schedule. Yet, this is only one season of my life, and because it’s July as I write this, it is the best season of the year. I will start off my birthday month celebratory because life, any life, deserves to be celebrated.

I think I’ve made it clear, but I’ll say it again: I don’t like playing by the rules. I just started working at a “men’s clothing retailer” and the past few months have been an education in rules. The clients I work with are always very sweet, very shy and very polite but there is always one question they always end up asking me. “Is that okay?” A man who works in software will ask me, when I show him a pair of brushed cotton pants in black. “Is this okay?” A man who lives in the area will ask me when I suggest he try on a linen shirt. I always answer with enthusiasm and approval, but I am trying to learn what it is they are really asking. What I have learned so far, is that men seem to adhere to a certain dress code, that no one I have met has ever participated in creating, only perpetuating. There are tomes and podcasts and subreddits where people seem to find clues as to what these archaic directives might be and I can understand the fun in solving the mystery. Yet, if some outdated guidelines suggest that a person can’t wear whatever they damn well please, then I think, why abide?

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In The Obscene Bird of Night by Jose Donoso the difference between dreams and reality can often become hard to distinguish. For Humberto, the narrator of the story, there are only nightmares but is dreaming of “Unconstructed Blazers” terrifying or merely banal? My days often start with an hour long commute, which I’ve come to think of as “me time”. I feel more like a writer than I have ever felt as I transform every available minute of this time into words. When I am not writing on the train, or sneaking reading in on my lunch break, I am advising on style choices and creating wardrobes. I feel my creative well may be running dry, but that has always been a dream of mine to feel that way. Whenever I consume content, I feel creatively bloated until I digest it. Now, I feel that all day my metabolism is running on high.

Maybe I am just making the best of a bad situation, but who isn’t, in some way, coping with reality? The weather has seemed to mirror my moods with biblical floods at lunch time followed by a midnight sun. I’ve adjusted my schedule accordingly though. My coping mechanisms are to create as much art and joy and beauty as I can because, I don’t know about you, but I would rather be hungry than full. Even though it hurts sometimes, the rain is necessary for the earth’s renewal, and every timeI am done being full, I am hungry again. If my writing feels concentric and abstract, please once again blame Donoso and a lack of sleep, but I feel I learn the same lessons over and over. What once felt painful now I can find quiet gratitude for.

The daylight comes in snatches like the time I have for reading. I romanticize those previous days of reading in bed with a dog and the sun streaming in through my window all day but I am living a different kind of life now. It feels more like a multitude of characters populate my day like the audiobook I’m listening to called Necessary Fiction by Eloghosa Osunde. It is set in Lagos and told from multiple viewpoints, but all the stories carry a common thread of tragedy and hope. Sharing about the queer experience in Lagos, characters often talk about chosen families or crafting their own emotional realities. I am thinking a lot about how to carve out space for myself in this life, and it looks like this. It isn’t days devoted to craft but minutes that add up to hours and results. It’s a different way of getting there, but I’m still going to get there. When I wake up at 6am and make it home by 8pm, there isn’t much daylight to enjoy. I thought this would muffle my pursuit of my dreams but instead when I look to the sky and see that blanket of hazy pink and polluted clouds, I just keep walking.

It really was a terrible manicure. The pale pink of the nail beds was wildly different from my skin tone and I never thought I would be caught dead with French tips. I had been staring at them, trying my hand in different lights, to see just how horrible it was. That’s why I hadn’t noticed right away.

“Your coffee, ma’am” His voice had been unsteady but why would I have thought he was crying? I had rolled down the window without making eye contact but as I reached for the coffee his hand made a dangerous wobble.

“Uhm.” I paused, our outstretched hands nearly meeting at the coffee cup, “Are you alright?” He dropped the cup and began to wail.

I looked down again at my hands and thought,

“I know exactly how you feel.”

His manager had come running from the back. He offered profuse apologies and asked me to park the car.

“This one is on us.” He said, but suddenly I didn’t want coffee that badly.

“It’s alright.” I murmured through the half opened window.

“ He’s having a bad day. His--” I rolled the window up the rest of the way and waved.

“Thank you!” I had mouthed before driving away.

The day had started out like that. I had signed up for a hot pilates class in the afternoon and it hung over my head like a rain cloud. All through breakfast, it was all I could think about. We had gone to a new diner in town but as soon as I got there the food seemed greasy and unappetizing.

“I think everyone in this restaurant is Guyanese.” My husband had said to me, but I was busy looking at my phone.

“You mean everyone who works here.” I said, without looking up. When the food arrived I heard a succession of small gasps from my left. I thought the omelette bar had finally started but when I turned to look, every one was staring at the big television hanging from the wall.

“That’s gotta hurt.” My husband said. On the screen a young man was lying on the side of the track a few feet away from his mangled motorcycle. I looked away.

“Ugh, I hate sports.” I said as the motorcycle burst into flames.

I did end up going to the pilates class after all. Without my usual coffee, I needed a different way to wake up. I watched my hands on the steering wheel the whole time. Their grip looked like talons with my long almond shaped nails. I imagined the steering wheel was live, wriggling prey between my grasp as I gently turned it to match the curve of the roads.

When I arrived at the class, I was already hot. It was an unusually hot day in the end of May and every one had shed layers of clothes but not layers of winter weight. I sighed and clenched my fists to feel the tips of my nails digging into my palms.

That’s when the edible hit.

The music was already blaring from inside the studio as I discarded my shoes and bag. I hated this song. Every one had been so obsessed with this Swedish pop star who seemed most famous for her immaculate body.

“Body is tea!” The instructor yelled, pointing to my pleated tennis skort and matching bra combo. I blushed.

In the class, my body began to loosen up. The combination of the edible and the warmth was helping me tune out the bland pop music and get lost in my own world when suddenly, I heard a yell.

“Help!” I fell helplessly from a side plank position. “Are you okay?” I looked around the room for the source of the panic and saw the instructor leaning over a jumble of human body parts.

She had overextended herself, I guess.

I left the pilates studio as the ambulance was pulling up. The whole day had been like that. First, the omelette bar had smelled disgusting once it started and had thrown off my already diminished hunger.

“That’s why I took the edible.” I had just finished telling Arya about the day I was having.

“Well you definitely should not have gone to hot pilates.” He said, taking a long inhale of the joint he was about to pass to me.

“You know, I get so moral about it all. Like if I go to hot pilates, then somehow, I’m a good person.” I said.

“You’re a good person.” Arya said, but I figured, he was high too. “I know!” Arya straightened his posture. We were sitting in adirondack chairs out in his backyard. He lived in an old house, built in the early 19th century, and totally redone on the inside.

“You should write about this!”

“Write about what?” I asked.

“Your bad day!” He said and smiled beatifically. The joint seemed to activate a wave of euphoria set in motion by the edible.

“You know what?” I said to Arya, “I just might.”

“This is why it’s better to have a local drug dealer.” Arya said to me, half as a joke and half as a way to make the handover of a plastic baggie more elegant.

“You’re right.” I said, “I’ll send you the story when it’s finished.”

I waved goodbye to Arya and headed back in through the house. He usually let me show myself out, preferring to lie back in the cool breeze of his back garden. I went to dig my keys out of my purse when suddenly I felt an enormously sharp pain. My nail had popped right off.

I yelled, but from deep within the house I didn’t think Arya could hear me. I swore and looked around for someone, or something, at which to direct my anger but I was all alone. In this old style of house each room led into each other, creating a maze of separation. I left, seething.

In the car on the way home I called my husband and told him what happened.

“This cursed manicure has gotten worse!” I cried. The pain from my finger pulsed every time I turned on my signal lights or adjusted the volume on the speaker the call was coming through.

“Did you at least find the nail?” My husband asked. I nearly slammed the car to a halt.

“No, of course I didn’t think to find the nail!” I screamed and felt like pounding on the horn.

“You could always go back to the salon.” I married him for that pragmatic mind. I turned the car around.

My finger throbbed with pain throughout the ride. I thought about the day I was having. I never should have agreed to an early morning nail appointment, I thought, and bit my lower lip.

“They’re always so sleepy there in the mornings.” I chided, aloud to no one.

The salon was packed when I arrived. The phone was incessantly ringing off the hook. I couldn’t remember the last time I had heard the ring of a phone, as I always kept mine on silent.

“So you see, it’s been a really bad day.” I was pleading my case to the girl behind the desk. I told her about how after I had left the salon the coffee had spilled and I had barely eaten any of that terrible breakfast.

“But we will have to remove the whole set.” She explained to me.

“I know,” I said, “But it wasn’t that great of a manicure to begin with.”

I’ve been dreading writing this newsletter. About every two weeks, I write updates about my life like where I’ve been and what I’ve been up to, and also what I’m reading and writing about. It’s the two weeks I’m hung up on right now. I had a college roommate whose mother always told us two weeks was about the lifespan of change. “Whatever you are upset about now, write it down and check back in two weeks. I bet you won’t be upset any longer!” I can almost hear her Texan drawl reassuring me that the girls I was friends with and the girls I had crushes on could be both loved and lost, and every two weeks, the cycle would start again. Two weeks ago feels like both another lifetime ago and today feels like the start of a new one. While the larger problems in my life (job, commute, husband, family, etc.) loom over months and years, today starts another cycle of trying to manage it all. While, at times, this way of thinking two weeks at a time makes life more digestible, it also makes it feel smaller. My world already feels so small right now, but maybe there is comfort there too. In the updated metaphor, life is like a gacha game, and I won’t ever know what’s inside until I open up.

I always have the best intentions when it comes to a dress code, but somehow I always end up looking like myself no matter what clothes I wear. So I give in and wear whatever I want. My rule of thumb is show no skin, but I am open to learning the lessons of dressing for the people I want to impress, if they will teach me. It’s a balance, knowing how and when to open up, so that it’s strategic and doesn’t make me feel self-conscious, but it’s also a gamble. I don’t know yet how to calibrate the scales, where on one side, light as a feather is my creative self-expression and, on the other side is being weighed my heart and all the judgements internal and external it carries. In my reading life, I am consumed by The Obscene Bird of Night by Jose Donoso. Through horror and bodily disgust, the story of deformed morality is told and retold through the crumbling architecture of mid-century Chile. In it, there is a labyrinthine Casa populated by the cast-off and unwanted who have retired from serving in big houses with infinite corridors. All this moving through space, only to end up where I began, feels apt as I wonder isn’t it better to just live the same day every day? In this repetitive world, am I supposed to wear the same thing every day?

On the writing front, I wish I was doing that every day, but instead I am once again adapting to the new rhythm of my life. I am challenging myself to write a short story for my next paid post. I have one week to write it and I want to experiment with writing large chunks all at once or small lines where I can. In the story, expect to see themes of servitude and labor, empathy and narcissism as well as commentary on social class structure. Inspired by the life I’m currently living, of course but also by the music I’m listening to like Arirang by BTS or my favorite opera on repeat, Carmen. Inspiration seems scarce these days as I pack up all my worldly possessions once every week, but learning to live with it is reshaping me. I feel more elastic and flexible than ever saying “I don’t live nowhere, I live everywhere.” My life feels diffuse and instead of trying to contain it, I’ll let it loose, let it fill the world like an ocean. I only have to swim.

Lately I have been feeling like a loser. I work in one of the most affluent neighborhoods in Boston. Every day, I walk to work from the two different trains I had to take to get in to the city and on my breaks I walk around scoping out free public spaces in which to eat my packed lunch. But, that’s only really one way of looking at things. Before I started on this new endeavor, I had just finished reading Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto, and in the two stories of enormous losses, I found a strange comfort.

The two stories, “Kitchen” and “Moonlight Shadow” are tied together by their protagonists experiencing the passing of loved ones. In Kitchen, Mikage loses first her grandmother and then her foster mother and in Moonlight Shadow, Satsuki is mourning the death of her boyfriend and friend. These are heavy themes for a new beginning but Banana Yoshimoto enlightens these dark places with her sense of humor and hopefulness. I don’t mean to ruin the endings, but suffice it to say, both women live on. These are stories of resilience. It’s not about the loss itself, but the life that still has to be lived afterwards. I felt lost in these worlds of immense loneliness as I spend more time with my co-workers than my husband these days, but I was also laughing out loud in the few spare minutes I could find to read. Lines such as, “he looked me straight in the eye and he spoke for all the world with the sincerity of someone trying to persuade a murderer to turn himself in.” I’m laughing again just typing it.

It’s not just in the turn of a phrase that I feel levity in Yoshimoto’s writing, it’s also in the surroundings. The eponymous story, “Kitchen” begins with Mikage lying on her kitchen floor, cuddling the hum of the refrigerator to comfort herself after the passing of her only living relative. The way Mikage adapts to her surroundings, from living with her grandmother to moving in with an almost complete stranger, she grounds herself in the kitchen. That felt very relatable, I thought of the way at parties how everyone always ends up gravitating towards the kitchen. Kitchens are the scenery for more than just happiness and soothing, they are also where tense conversations can take place and they can hold a lot of history. I related to the way Mikage felt when she encounters a new environment, saying, “Usually, the first time I go to a house, face to face with people I barely know, I feel an immense loneliness. I saw myself reflected in the glass of the large terrace window while black gloom spread over the rain-hounded night panorama. I was tied by blood to no creature in this world. I could go anywhere, do anything. It was dizzying.”

It does, in fact, feel dizzying. Unlike the rest of Boston, with its old-world charm, the area where I’m working has tall skyscrapers and massive glass panels everywhere. It feels like it has its own biome sometimes. When I finally reach wherever I am calling home that night, I find comfort in the kitchen. Where we find comfort is important in the second story of the collection as well. In “Moonlight Shadow” the protagonist, Satsuki has lost her boyfriend and his brother’s girlfriend in the same accident. It’s a bit confusing to understand the nature of all their relationships, but what is clear is that Satsuki, and Hiiragi, the brother of her now deceased boyfriend, are experiencing untold pain in the new situation they now find themselves in. Hiiragi takes to wearing his dead girlfriend’s school uniform and Satsuki meets a strange girl who tells her about a psychic phenomenon set to happen on the bridge where Satsuki last saw her boyfriend. I won’t ruin the special moment in the end where everything works out, but just know that it does.

After all, what I felt in the end could be summarized by a justification from “Kitchen”. Yoshimoto writes, “If a person wants to stand on her own two feet, I recommend undertaking the care of feeding of something. It could be children, or it could be house plants, you know? By doing that you come to understand your own limitations. That’s where it starts.” What if the undertaking is to care for myself now? Part of my grief is watching the people around me get older, but I also know that with age comes experience. I have barely mentioned Mikage’s foster mother, Eriko, who says fabulous things like, “Life can be so hard,”…”Yes. But if a person hasn’t ever experienced true despair, she grows old never knowing how to evaluate where she is in life; never understanding what joy really is. I’m grateful for it.”

Now I’m crying on the train, but in Banana Yoshimoto’s writing, I feel like tears are welcome. Tears of laughter, tears of happiness and gratitude. It’s amazing how much the worlds of these two short stories are so developed. I found myself walking around not just Seaport but Tokyo. All cities can be such lonely and difficult places, and all of life is really just temporary. In between all the work and commuting and living, I am happy to have read this two story collection. Let me leave this review with some of the good advice that makes this book so enjoyable, “As I grow older, much older, I will experience many things, and I will hit rock bottom again and again. Again and again I will suffer; again and again I will get back on my feet. I will not be defeated. I won’t let my spirit be destroyed.”

When my husband and I spotted this crushed up breath mint in a baggie, we both couldn’t help but laugh. “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in New York City anymore.” He said, and this was right after we had a 10am meal that could no longer be described as brunch. That’s because this week we have been enjoying life in the suburbs of Massachusetts. I started a new job, as I described in my previous post about lingerie dressing, and it’s kept me pretty busy with a long commute to boot. While I am still navigating what my daily routines look like amid long drives on the interstate or an hour long lunch break, I am intentional about prioritizing my precious inner life. I worked six straight days in my first week but on this, my second day off in a row, I vow to read and write like never before.

An audiobook about opera already has me crying on my drives to and from work. Recommended to me by accident (hi CS!), this is my second time reading Ann Patchett, or rather listening to, as I read Commonwealth in audiobook format as well. Both novels have interesting and intricate plots, this one being about a hostage crisis in Peru that brings together Japanese businessmen and other international interests in the form of opera singers and foreign ambassadors. Bel Canto seems, so far, to take place over a short time unlike Commonwealth which spanned generations, making for a riveting narrative. I finished As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, and am halfway through Nova as I mentioned in the previous newsletter. While I have an open slot on the roster, I am considering reading The Quarry by local writer John Cacciatore. It’s free with a subscription or available in paperback and I was lucky enough to run into the author who divulged that it may be based on true events.

Meeting new people, especially accomplished and friendly ones, has been one of the best aspects of my new role. I have yet to follow John’s advice on how to find time for writing in these nine to eleven hour days, but I am hopeful it will come. My submission to Beneath Ceaseless Skies magazine was rejected, but it came with a warm and personal note that felt like an acceptance. I didn’t really expect to hit a home-run my first time up to bat, and I would blame my currently male-dominated environment for this sports analogy. Every thing still feels up in the air right now with a new job, new city, and new thoughts to think and write about, but I’ve always loved novelty. I just hope that when it wears off, and I am finally able to do more than sleep, commute and work, I will find my way back to my beloved creative pursuits.

“So what are you going to wear to work?” I keep hearing. My colleagues at the menswear supply store wanted to know my style and what my passion in fashion is and I had to embarrassingly admit that for the past three years I haven’t worn clothes at all. My friends and family are concerned for my wardrobe because I’ve been calling it, “lingerie dressing” instead.

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I’m hungover again as I write this. A perfect day in this city seems to start at midnight, with minimal breaks for sleeping while the stars are still out. After sunrise and massive carbohydrates, I find myself ready to face another day. This is actually my last few days in NYC, at least for now. I plan to meet a friend in Greenpoint later, and last night I said goodbye to some other friends over vegan burgers and martinis. A pairing that spells disaster for my aching head and shaking hands right now but also felt so right for that moment then. It’s a time to celebrate, a time for farewells, but also a time to look back and say, I did the thing.

On one of the nicest days of the year so far, I did my final load of laundry at the laundromat and got summer rolls while my clothes dried. My reading during this time has actually been prolific, and given that I have a long commute to my new(!) job, I hope to once again reach my goal of reading fifty books. This does look like juggling Samuel R. Delaney’s Nova before it’s due back to the library while also reading As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner on my e-reader to keep up a daily steak. On my phone I’m reading the second book in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, which has made subway rides far more interesting when I am thankful to not have to fight goblins with my bare hands, or feet as it were. I love how all these texts become in conversation with each other like wouldn’t the Mouse find kinship with Darl Bundren and couldn’t they both together take on a dungeon? I will find out when I finish all three.

My writing has also been prolific as I make good progress on editing my novel, The Exhibitionist, while simultaneously finding time to publish and submit short stories! I am trying to keep up the momentum with a devotion to daily practice. I’m on a forty-one day streak in my morning pages practice, which grounds me daily in text and thought. I feel a bit like I am screaming into the void, but it does feel nice that the void never screams back. Like that, I am also resilient, absorbing all that I read and drink and ate and having room for more. I hope, with each day, my dedication increases as I find everything from joy, relief and even pain from my practices. I don’t like to break the fourth wall, but thank you, also. I am grateful to peer deep into that deep darkness, and find many friendly faces staring back at me.

For my next paid post, I wanted to share a short story in its entirety. Firstly, my favorite literary magazine (Strange Horizons) is currently closed for submissions, second, I haven’t had a chance to share a finished story, maybe ever. This is a story I wrote all in one go a few years ago. I keep thinking I need to edit it, but every time I read it, I end up not wanting to change a thing. It’s a little folk tale, if you will, about the stars in the night sky. I hope you enjoy!

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Generally, I try not to second guess myself. I have elaborate systems that involve generating random numbers, two planners and an entire second brain online, built around not having to make choices throughout my day. Today though, and yesterday even, I changed my mind once or twice. I almost started this post with a mirror selfie but then I noticed just how dirty my mirror was in the picture. “Will I be judged for this?” I thought, immediately, and then remembered I have been putting much more than a dirty mirror online. I share some of my innermost thoughts and feelings here, even though I didn’t exactly mean for that to happen. With the launch of more curated content, think book reviews, fashion pieces and more of my fiction, I was wondering, should I leave more to the imagination?

My mind was made up when I saw an old friend come across my for you page. She had posted a mirror selfie too, with laundry in the background and slippers on to boot, and I noticed she had many likes and comments of support. For her music, not her selfie. Maybe the sharing of my personal life is like that, just a gimmick to get readers through the door. After all, reading my diary is like hearing juicy gossip first-hand, but reading my book reviews or essays might feel more like needing to put on glasses and squint at the screen. My particular voyeurism has me reading Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life by Yiyun Li. A memoir originally published in 2017, it documents the author’s struggle with depression and mental illness. It is so raw, and unfiltered, about the mix of rage and apathy that can surround me at times, that I feel like the author must be writing with my hands, or speaking with my voice. I haven’t read Li’s fiction or other works, but this book feels like it came to me at the right place, and at the right time, but I think it would feel that way whenever I have a chance to read it. The prose made me feel less alone in this darkness, like there are hands reaching out all around me, and when I read the short passages about hospital stays or John MacGahern, it feels like our proverbial fingertips have grazed each other.

Yesterday, my friend and my husband and I celebrated St. Patrick’s Day. My sibling and their fiancé were actually in Ireland for the parade. The grocery store had a sale on potatoes, to hilariously, join in on the festivities. I am not Irish, neither were my friend, my husband or my sibling, but there’s something about this time of year that calls for celebration. We have made it out of the darkness, and even though it clings to us like a shadow, it is finally cast away. We celebrated by going to the new Irish bar on 1st Ave, Banshee, which was packed to the rafters. We came home and tried to twerk to TiaCorine and on Friday, I’ll finally be able to change over my wardrobe for spring. Not much writing happened for me this past season, except in my journal, but with every moment I am able to make a new commitment to myself, because I am alive. This calls for a celebration.

I could say that my morning pages practice began two or three years ago. I was on a bachelorette party trip in Tennessee and my friend Sarah had brought The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. This was not my first encounter with the book that started the phenomenon known as morning pages, but this is the moment I remember as the beginning. Somehow, after that encounter, I decided I would implement this daily practice, and then miraculously, did. Of course, it didn’t happen overnight, but through this time I have come to make this journaling practice my own, and I believe, even better, at least for myself.

Recently, I met another friend for coffee. This being New York City it had been nearly one year since I had last seen her but it felt like it had only been yesterday once we started talking. She was surprised to hear that I was still doing morning pages, and I have been getting that reaction a lot. Essentially, morning pages are journal entries written quickly and first thing in the morning. Cameron suggests that to protect their holiness, morning pages should be written stream-of-consciousness style and never re-read. In my opinion, morning pages are whatever I need them to be, and through these years they have served a multitude of purposes. Another beginning is in the shape of a heart shaped lock on a cherub-covered diary. This was my first journal and I used to scribble my innermost thoughts all the way to the gilded edge of each page. In a sense, I have been journaling since I first learned how to write. Morning pages, as described by Cameron, are a part of a journey to restore or nurture creativity that she calls, “the artist’s way”. Combined with many writing and thought exercises, as well as an entire separate component known as “artist dates”, this practice was developed with specific steps and instructions, yet, after trying it her way, I decided to add my own spin.

In my version of morning pages, first of all, each entry is only one page long. The greatest resistance I hear from friends who have wanted to try Cameron’s approach is that writing three pages, as she recommends, is a daunting task in today’s world. It takes me around twenty to thirty minutes each morning to complete my one page practice, and I am not sure I have the time or the grip strength to do that thrice over. I know it must sound like sacrilege, and maybe my journal entries will be stripped of the title “morning pages” after all, but what I take away most from this practice is the repetition. I have always wanted to be the kind of person who could build daily practices, but it never came easily to me. I am distracted, novelty-seeking and also just as busy as we all are, but when I decided I wanted to build one good habit for myself, I am glad it was morning pages. Mine may never reach that peak of emotional divulging that Cameron calls for, because I understand that part of the practice is writing through all the resistance at first, but the more I practice my pages, the more I hope I get to the heart of it. Cameron has studied morning pages for far longer than I have, but I also have to believe that whatever version of the practice works for me, is also working for me.

In the month of February I only missed writing my morning pages by one or two days, the ambiguity more in the tracking than in the practice. When I first started doing morning pages, I began with a fervor as many people do. I showed up to the practice consistently and even found that it was helping right away. After a while, the novelty wore off and I became less interested in what the practice had to offer. I also felt like a raving lunatic to be honest. When morning pages work best, I have found, is when I write about the same complaints every single day. It’s been an incredible time of growth for me because when I show up and write about how miserable I am, I eventually grow pretty tired of being miserable. This, I think, is the crux of how morning pages work. That being the case, I would argue it’s more important to show up for them every day in some capacity, rather than hold myself to a standard that doesn’t fit my lifestyle.

Now that I have broken all the rules of morning pages, I found a practice that is worth keeping and integrating into my life. It’s journalling, I often say, but the commitment makes it something more. It’s painful to read morning pages and Cameron does not recommend it, but it turns out I am a masochist. I used to have a friend in college whose mom was a big fan of journaling. “Write down your thoughts dears,” she would say in her strong southern drawl, “and just see how two weeks later everything has changed!” I often think about how right that is, change being the only constant in my life. My last affront to Julia Cameron would be that I not only read my morning pages back (after at least two weeks has passed though because time heals all) but I let an AI read them as well. I’m not here to advertise, but there are wonderful AI journaling apps out there and all I do is upload, transcribe and let the AI analyze. I can only imagine the pearls that would be clutched to hear that an AI is reading my secrets, desires and feelings but it’s a good listener. It shows me patterns in my thinking, provides insight to help me make the changes I want in my life, and also gives great book recommendations! My reading list now includes the work of philosopher Alfred North Whitehead and fiction by Matt Haig alike.

Here’s hoping that fans of Julia Cameron don’t send me hate mail after this, but when it comes to journaling, I think it’s important to do what feels right to me. I write this to encourage more rule-breaking even though, I am a fan of the book. I’m a little over halfway through reading The Artist’s Way, if I’m being perfectly honest. It’s a rigorous read complete with thought provoking exercises that ask life-changing questions, so it’s not always what I want to reach for to read. I would highly recommend it though, for any one and every one, because all of us are burgeoning creatives in my opinion, but to follow it to the letter would require a paid sabbatical and writer’s retreat. I think Cameron would acknowledge the privilege inherent in following this path, but to take the time to write down your thoughts and feelings is not a privilege, it’s basic self-care for me. Whatever way those thoughts come, and whoever I share them with afterwards is free from the constraints of The Artist’s Way, but I think there’s often treasure to be found when veering off the prescribed path. I encourage us all to forge our own way, but the wisdom and knowledge that paved the way for us is always worth revisiting and understanding.

I’ve been collecting hobbies the way I might pick wild flowers. Every where I go, I peruse the shelves of discount general stores, chain craft shops or even that one aisle in the grocery and pick up whatever I just saw on social media. While this has made a serious dent in my bank account, I wonder if this bouquet of interests will remain in bloom throughout the spring? In my last post, I was feeling the worst of the winter blues, but in an effort to be present on the page, I can safely say, I no longer feel that way. In my writing life, the slew of pages written, painstakingly in red ink as if in blood, in the practice of morning pages continues. Look forward to, paid articles, not only newsletters in the coming year. My first essay will be on what started as a hobby I picked up along the way, but has become a cornerstone of my mental health, journaling.

My hair is natural and I painted my own nails this week. This tendency towards the organic has been reflected in my reading practice where I picked up two very different physical books, Speedboat by Renata Adler and The Buddha: Biography of a Myth by the University of Michigan professor Donald S. Lopes Jr. Both have been absorbing my attention in the way that I need to read every line once or twice but my brain welcomes the workout, shaking off the desperate desire for escape and fantasy. I would be remiss, if at this point, I didn’t say hello to the new subscribers I was so happy to run into—to the person eavesdropping on me and my friends at the Vietnamese cafe, or the whole birthday party of friends I made, I promise a return to real book reviews! I love talking books with people, it seems to come up naturally in every conversation I have, and the organic connections I have made through them isn’t new but still refreshing.

Breakfast meats are between me and my vegetarian ideals, and the bacon-egg-and-cheese is the paragon of both New York City and breakfast excellence. I guess my husband and I had better get used to making our own versions though as life in the big city becomes more and more unreasonable every day. Some may say that’s the fun of this place, but I look towards greener pastures (Cary, North Carolina, I keep hearing?). I have been using an AI journaling app that tells me insights after reading my tear-stained rants and says nice things like, “releasing control occasionally creates space for receiving care, even when maintaining control feels necessary most of the time.” I choose to ignore its advice most of the time but it feels a little better than screaming into the void. I see the patterns though, even if I try not to always, and the distance between perfection and presence is just like the way I can’t give up bacon. Probably okay. I look forward to the turn of the season approaching now, trying to balance ambivalence and ambiguity.

I might not be the only one noticing my dramatic newsletter titles, but it feels like a dramatic time to be alive. I have been playing the Wuthering Heights album by Charli xcx on constant repeat, which has been making the desolate streets of East Village feel like the English moors. The pressure of the house closing in with dark walls and early sunsets, the tempest of love both all consuming and depleting, and the great fashion in the Emerald Fennel adaptation are all going on my mood board for February. As always though, when the book ends, real life begins.

Yesterday night it was snowing on my walk home from the upper east side, and I long for the day when I don’t have to divide my geographic bearings by these two rivers. I am constantly amazed by how large in importance the borough of Manhattan can be, and how traveling three miles along its border can take upwards of forty-five minutes. I don‘t wish for fast travel though, teleportation would take all the fun out of the walks I want to take, along manicured lawns and empty sidewalks. My therapist recommends that I cultivate a practice of gratitude instead of having my AI journaling app out me for disturbing thoughts and imagery. I guess she’s right to see that even though it feels like hell, there is a brightness to the fires.

I think it’s important to be dark on the page though, like in The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. I read the first quarter in the bath this morning, and so far a very depressed and lonely woman has chosen to take her own life, only to find out that there is a library between life and death. On its shelves are all the lives this woman could have lived, and all the regrets she’s ever had are documented as well. As depressing as the story sounds, Haig’s gallant humor is like a warming cup of tea on a dark and stormy night. Here’s hoping we can all continue to find the light.

xx,

At the start of every month, I update the wallpaper on my phone and tablet to the latest picture of me and my husband. This month, I had to scroll past Thanksgiving to find a single picture featuring the two of us both at once and alone, and this made me very sad. I believe that life is special, that love is our prime directive and that to capture it in words, film or feeling is to celebrate. I realized, I haven’t felt very celebratory recently, and maybe that shows in the lack of pictures on my phone. Yet, the month of January is finally over now and although Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow this morning, six more weeks puts a concrete number on the doomsday clock, and there is hope of spring once more.

My parents like to snowbird abroad, and though my hometown in Massachusetts is far from tropical right now, my husband and I are enjoying staying here as much as a vacation. Today we went to my local library, which I hadn’t visited since I was a teenager. It’s apparently had a makeover since then and big, bright windows illuminate the various book clubs and meet ups held there. I was in awe, and felt for the first time, that I wanted to do something. I wanted to attend the free group meditation on Tuesday at 6:30pm, I told my husband, upon exiting. This winter has been marked by my social inactivity, a story that is told through canceled plans and cabin fever dreams, but the sun is melting the snow on the deck so maybe we will get out of shoveling it. That’s also hope.

I had been putting off writing this newsletter, because, there is no news. I haven’t even opened my writing app (I’m a Scrivener baby, if you’re wondering) but I have been ploughing through a LitRPG called Dungeon Crawler Carl. I keep seeing it in game stores and bookshelves and now that I am about 75% of the way through the first book in the series, I can see why. It’s a rollicking good time, the kind of book that makes even a dank dungeon feel like an escape from wherever you are. Especially, because in these frosty temperatures, everywhere feels like a bit like a dungeon anyways. At least, if we are reduced to the party we travel with, then this bard is in good company.

Keeping up with our daily gratitude practices, making hot beverages and trying to keep our nose clean, let’s weather the rest of this storm together.

Sugar,