On Monday a few dozen of us gathered in the parking lot behind the Montclair Library and watched hundreds of chimney swifts soar about until, one by one or two by two or two by three, they fell into the massive chimney of the Buzz Aldrin Middle School, where they
In fifth grade, the teacher sent us home with a permission slip for Sex Ed. My parents made a scene and marked an emphatic X next to “no." They would have said no to D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) too if given the choice, all on
Which is to say: I ate the fluffy pancakes you made, and picked up a prescription, and carted two plant stands and a blanket ladder from a neighbor, and ran two loads of laundry, and napped. You took the legs off the plant stands in order to re-attach them
"We're moving!" "Why are we stopping?" "Where are the people?" "We're moving again!" "What if the train gets kicked off the tracks?" [inaudible] "Why?" – Friday morning on the Montclair-Boonton line Thanks for sticking
a woman reaches down to slip off one red shoe, and then the next. She keeps walking down Fifth Avenue in the abating rain, shoes in one hand, umbrella in the other. Earlier in the day, before the rain, a man walking three collie mixes complimented her glasses and her
A concert in an atrium on Broadway. The air-conditioning is very good, it's the first time I've felt cold enough in weeks. A lovely intimate concert, a violinist we softly know, and a cellist. They are going to play Tessellatum by Donnacha Dennehy, accompanied by
The week started with the conductor losing his hat, and ended with a thunderstorm that stalled the train in Hoboken. Fifteen minutes turned into an hour, but the air-conditioning worked and I had juice and wifi, so I stayed put. Then the hour turned into two, and finally the
A letter every Sunday at sunset • If you're always looking, after some time you'll have seen
"You already did the hardest part," says the conductor on the 7:44 to Hoboken, "you got out of bed," and the train car murmurs in collective agreement. I do not have a lot to say this week, I mean, I worked a lot, and on
Your husband peeks into your Pickwick backpack, standing open on a chair in the kitchen. "You've got the contents of King Tut's tomb in there," he says, and he's not wrong. One thing you don't have in that bag? The
Worked from home in Jersey for two days on account of the air, or lack of it. Nothing good to eat at home. Intense longing for Brooklyn: its open all hours conveniences. Stepped out at nine o'clock on Friday to walk to ShopRite, saw two young deer standing
On an otherwise deserted street in the Saint-Sauveur of Quebec, a small child with a determined walk suddenly stops to pull a tab off a lost cat ("Chat Perdu") flyer. Then he looks around to see if anyone has seen him do so. We have. But we
On July 2, 2026, Central Park recorded a temperature of one hundred degrees. The last time this happened was July 18, 2012. On July 24, 2012, Ilya registered Redbeard Bikes as a business in the state of New York. Two weeks ago – fourteen years later! – Ilya publicly announced that he&
For a while Maury appeared at our side steps every night. It was a joy to see him clean his plate. "Maury cleaned his plate," we said. He licked it so clean, he flipped the plate. "Maury flipped his plate," we said. He gave us something
We shuffled through a dark narrow passage, each holding a long skinny white candle between forefinger and middle finger, so that the wax, if it fell, would fall on the top of our hand. The guide told stories about the saints and other famous people buried in the Kyiv Pechersk
One night after work you squeeze into crowded Rizzoli to hear two illustrators talk about their favorite page turns in children's books. They talk about how children shout out things as you're reading to them. How, as a writer you're chasing that, you want
Last week, Ebru and Daniel, our wonderful friends, had a party, they often have parties, wonderful ones, but now they are moving to Berlin for the foreseeable, so this was the last party. The people who are moving into the apartment next, they were at the party, too, which never
civil twilight
This week you're a water tower, the kind you see outside New York, with the city or town name across the bulbous white head, except your head is filled with snot that will not drain. Fire and ice. You're burning up in a sweatshirt and wool
Let the chair do the work.