I have been looking into schedules. Even when we read physics, we inquire of each least particle, What then shall I do this morning? How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time.
~Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
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On the first of each month,
a guest writer
shares
how they spend the day.
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August 1, 2024: Roberta S. Kuriloff
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When Roberta S. Kuriloff was six, her mother died of cancer, and her father took her and her brother to live with his sister on a farm in New Jersey. Shortly thereafter, her aunt was also diagnosed with cancer, and her father moved the children to an orphanage. He visited regularly but was unable to care for them on a daily basis. As an adult, Roberta became an attorney, and her first job was working for the New Haven Legal Assistance Association in the Family Law Unit where she helped families in emotional and financial crisis.
On a trip to Maine, Roberta and Mary Ann, her partner, bought a piece of property with the dream of moving out of the city. They talked of building “a feminist retreat center for learning and sharing, with a bookstore and a coffee house.” While still living in New Haven, Roberta organized a public reading by the poet Audre Lorde. “Her voice made me float on waves of erotic air. I’d never heard anyone read so sensually. Her voice could move mountains.”
After Roberta and Mary Ann decided to go their separate ways, Roberta wondered whether to go forward with moving. As she thought about it, she “sensed that something, more than just land…something I wouldn’t discover in New Haven” was pulling her to Maine. She wanted a different life—she wanted to be creative again. So at the age of thirty-nine, she persevered on her own to make it happen. Framing a Life is the perfect title for her memoir.
In Maine Roberta met with a mason and a well-digger. She chose the direction the house should face and decided on chimney size. She ordered firewood for the woodstove that would be in her new house.
At night, I couldn’t sleep, with a to-do bulletin board percolating in my head. I jumped out of bed at five o’clock, cooked scrambled eggs and hot chocolate, and burned my tongue.
These next two paragraphs detail her days as she not only built a house but also a life.
[My builders, Sue and Niki, and I] fell into a routine. Each day started about seven and ended around four, with a lunch break where the three of us sat cross-legged in a circle on the house deck, music lowered, to chat and eat, surrounded by tools and sawhorses. Every morning I walked Maya [a white husky] before work, and then at day’s end…
The days tumbled into each other, and I lost track. It was odd, not having client appointments or looking at a calendar. My to-do list was also shorter—sleep, build, walk Maya, try to study for the bar, and eat. In the dark of night, I sat on the deck of my rental, looking up and viewing a full moon, the stars bright and Blue Hill Mountain sharply visible in my view. I was a happy camper.
Roberta S. Kuriloff is a founding member of two domestic violence projects as well as an elderly services organization, and she has also been a Hospice patient-volunteer and bereavement workshop facilitator. In addition to writing, she likes to drink tea with jam and to dance. She and her spouse, Bernice, have been together since 1995 and happily married since 2013. Spoiler alert—they live in the home she built in the woods of Maine.
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Come back on AUGUST 1st to read how ROBERTA S. KURILOFF spends her days.
