Snow day

The wind shakes the snow from the trees, the trees are a snow sifter.

Last night I threw together an apple-pear crisp. I was lazy and didn't peel the fruit, nor did I reduce the sugar. So it came out half-hearted, but even half-hearted fruit, oats, cinnamon, sugar, butter, when you add heat, are a bright spark on a cold day when the sky is close and the news is dire.

Last weekend in Northampton, MA, I stayed with a friend who threw together an apple-pear crisp, and offered me a piping hot cup of it, as I wrote under a blanket in the guest room of her farmhouse (not pictured). Friend and fruit and blanket. Farmhouse bookended by fields and forest, notebook darkening with ink.

I had written all the way up in the train, I worked on "Summer" and I worked on "Fall," the first two sections of my novel. I had written material for "Fall" that I'd forgotten about and it surprised me to read it and realize, yes, I can use this, it belongs.

When you write, you throw so much away, even though you're never actually throwing anything away, you're just composting it, turning scraps into black gold that will nourish and grow new material.

In Northampton, there is a magical shop called Raven Used Books. They shelve fiction and memoir together, and they have half a dozen postcard racks with postcards from various boxed sets, like Flower Box by Princeton Architectural Press, all mixed together. Sure, you could buy the boxed set online, but the greater joy is in rifling through the racks, assembling a hand, while listening to the booksellers gossip as they fish out items that have fallen between the counter and the wall. Coins. A spoon. A book on mindfulness.

A new friend tells you she dreams of opening a bookshop. An old friend actually did so, with an old friend of hers, it's called Two Friends.

Will you, in turn, one day..? Or is the grass really always greener in another shop another office, another pursuit, and is the answer just to write about these other lives?

Let the notion percolate while you decide "Summer" is as good as it can be, for now, and keep going with "Fall," because "Winter" is here and you'd do well to get there yourself, too.

Eat pear-and-apple crisp for breakfast, with the treasured teaspoon pilfered from Sabena, the Belgian national airline until 2001, the airline on which you flew to America in 1990 – and again for lunch, with a side of marble rye, untoasted, because you have not yet unpacked the toaster, even though you've been living here for a baker's dozen months already.

And then, approaching sunset, bundle up in yellows and blues, and head two doors down for the tree lighting at the bottom? the end? the heart of the cul-de-sac. Bring your own cup for the hot chocolate.

Thank you & news

Just this morning, a dear friend and talented writer brought the Divinity School subscription drive HOME! In just a few weeks: $1500 raised to bridge the gap between grants/financial aid and the cost of a month at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. THANK YOU, everyone, who subscribed or "tipped" (new option).

Of course, further subscriptions always welcome and encouraged, shares and forwards, etc. I am determined to be a bright spark in these dark times, and writing is my way.

And now, the news:

"Search Work: A Collective Inquiry into the Job Hunt" (OR Books, 2026) is now available for pre-order at 15% off, exclusively from OR Books.

Thank you, Rachel Meade Smith, for including my essay in this visionary and timeless collection! It's my first essay in a book, I am over the moon. And thank you, OR Books, for giving this book a home.