Trees dam the night
We're driving home on Route 3 in Jersey.
"Did you see the car without lights?"
"No, where."
"Exactly."
You knew that car was there, you tell me, because of how the cars around it were moving.
Albedo, you tell me, is the fraction of sunlight that is diffusely reflected by a body. They use it to figure out if there's a planet or other body somewhere out there in space, even if they can't see it. Something something... I get lost in your explanation, until you tie it all back to that car on Route 3 without lights. And then I snap to.
That's like grief, I say. You can't see the person who died, but you know they existed by how the grieving person moves and talks.
We probably say other things before we reach our exit and soon thereafter, pull up to the starter home in which our black/gray/white mackerel tabby awaits her dinner.
We do not have a fireplace, and that's alright by me. The real ones stress me out and the virtual ones feel the opposite of cozy.
I feed Bobina. I am the Head Can Opener, after all. You pull bowls from the cold cabinet, pull pasta and sauce and cheddar from the cold light of the fridge, assemble supper. We move around the kitchen and around each other, avoiding the dark things, the things that hurt.
Geese fly over the house, talking continuously.
A word...
I'm taking a cue from fellow writers to state explicitly that I make Divinity School from scratch without AI. The writing and the photos here are all my work, always.
News
Diane Zinna is a beloved friend, a writer and a teacher of writing. Her grief writing workshops have been life-changing for me. Diane's book, "Letting Grief Speak: Writing Portals for Life After Loss," comes out in June, pre-order at your favorite indie book shop, or at the Bookshop.org link below.
Columbia University Press
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I'm getting ready for my residency at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA), I'll be there February 9 through March 10. You bet I am preemptively homesick.
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"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. I believe you can also pre-order at your favorite indie bookstore.
Save the date – March 25 – for a book launch party!
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.
