The order of things

In the morning, throw on a hoodie and step into your boots. Go out back, break the ice in the bucket so the juncos, cardinals and squirrels can drink.

Back inside, measure out the coffee beans, grind them. When the water reaches two-hundred-and-five-degrees, slowly pour it in concentric circles over the coffee.

(Play with word order in your head, but not with the order of operations.)

Sit at the picture window with the cat. Let her sniff the coffee. Reassure each other that everything is in order. Later in the day, your nose will come up against problems. Now, together, watch the birds drink, and bathe. Watch the squirrels do their calisthenics, their beauty routines.

Your husband sleeps through the night now, mostly. He doesn't stop breathing multiple times an hour anymore, or at least he doesn't stop breathing as often as he did before.

You can move on to other problems, now.

The heap of citrus peels on a tray in the tv room: a kind of light.

CORRECTION!

The author of The Sunflower Boys is Sam Wachman. My apologies to Sam for the error in the list of Kasia's favorite books of 2025 that went out Monday to paid subscribers.

In the same list, I also forgot the diacritic marks in "Rok, w którym nie umarłem" ("The year in which I didn't die") by Mikołaj Grynberg. (Slow down, Kasia!)

The Sunflower Boys is an incredible debut novel, a coming-of-age story set in Ukraine during the current Russian invasion. Pick up a copy at your favorite indie bookshop or on Bookshop.org, and if you'd like to get the full list, please upgrade to a paid subscription.

All subscriptions through year-end support my upcoming residency at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA). If money is tight, please DM me for a comp'd subscription. If you're a writer/artist, let's do a subscription trade. Thank you! XO