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On the first of each month,
a guest writer
shares
how they spend the day.

Photo Credit: David E. Lawrence

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June 1, 2023: Marjan Kamali

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Marjan Kamali’s The Stationery Shop opens in 2013, in New England, in Roya and Walter’s kitchen. Each is seventy-seven, and they have been married a long time. Walter eats a hard-boiled egg for breakfast almost every day. Roya tells us that’s because he’s Walter. I’m such a nut for marriage stories that I was in. Give me more dish-drying and eggs.

Not to be. In Chapter Two we go back to 1953, to Tehran, to the summer Roya is seventeen, and to the breakfast table where she eats not eggs, but fresh naan with feta cheese and homemade sour cherry jam. And before the chapter is over, we are in the Stationery Shop.

Roya loved running her fingers over tablets of smooth pages in that shop. She loved the boxes of pencils that smelled like lead and promised knowledge. She could spend an entire afternoon just looking at fountain pens and ink bottles or flipping through books that spoke of poetry and love and loss.

A few moments later,

Roya nodded and was reaching into her purse when the bell above the shop door chimed. The door burst open, letting in shouts from the streets and a huge gust of wind. The pages of Rumi ruffled in her hand. A boy her age entered the store in a hurry… He walked in whistling a tune that was wistful and filled with longing.

And then he’s gone. “Who was that?” Roya asks. “That is the boy who wants to change the world,” Mr. Fakhri, the owner of the shop, tells her. And the big questions become how did Roya get from this boy in Tehran to Walter in New England and how (and why) do our lives turn out the way they do.

Marjan’s writing is beautiful and full of details that place the reader in a scene—pamphlets with Prime Minister Mossadegh’s face scattered on the ground, elephant’s ear pastries, pink-cushioned chairs, green-feathered hats, the Cinema Metropole on Lalehzar Street. About a third of the way in, Roya has occasion to receive a letter from the boy who would change the world, who is called Bahman and who smells like the wind. The passage below is a perfect example of what the writer Mary Gordon calls “saturating a moment.”

She ran her fingers across the letter, willing his scent to rise from the paper, wanting part of him to sink through the pads of her fingers. She had only seen his handwriting once before, the inscription he’d written inside the notebook he’d given her as a gift for the new year. Seeing his handwriting again felt like holding a piece of him. In each stroke, with each curve and dip of the letters on the page, she could feel him. And when she read the letter over and over and over again, his voice was inside her.

I’m not going to give the story away, but I will tell you that I never thought about Walter again…

The Stationery Shop is a big, thick, love story set amidst the 1953 Iranian coup d’état. You will also meet Zari, Roya’s younger sister, and Mrs Aslan, Bahman’s mother. There will be khoresh stews. I kept my pen in the book as a bookmark so I would be ready to underline. I couldn’t wait to get back to the story each day.

Come back on JUNE 1st to read how MARJAN KAMALI spends her days.

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On the first of each month,
a guest writer
shares
how he or she spends the day.

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January 1, 2022: Alice Elliott Dark

When I was trying to figure out how to become a writer,  Alice Elliott Dark’s “In the Gloaming,” published in The New Yorker in May of 1993, was one of the first stories I ever read. If you haven’t read it, click away now to The New Yorker archives. You can also find it in the collection of the same name or in John Updike’s The Best American Short Stories of the Century. It was adapted into two films.

In the story, a mother sits with her dying son. “He wanted to talk again, suddenly,” is how the story begins. Laird wants to talk after dinner, at dusk, and Janet wants to listen. “She found it hard work to keep up with him, but it was the work she had pined for all her life.” It’s a beautiful story of small moments and how they “add up to something of importance.”

And this coming July, Alice’s first book in almost twenty years will be published–a novel called Fellowship Point. About it, author Christina Baker Kline writes,

Fellowship Point is a marvel. Intricately constructed, utterly unique, this novel set on the coast of Maine is filled with insights about writing, about the perils and freedoms of aging, about the great mysteries, as well as the pleasures, of life. The story about the relationships between three women unfolds, as life does, through joys and losses, confrontations and confessions, with twists along the way that change your perception of all that came before.

You can pre-order Fellowship Point–I already have. I can’t wait.

In the meantime, you can read Alice’s first novel, Think of England, which begins in 1964, when Jane is nine. The evening after it opens, the Beatles first appear on The Ed Sullivan Show, but Jane will remember this night for another reason.

Think of England takes place mostly in 1979, with Jane off by herself in England. “[S]he needed to put thousands of miles, a whole gray ocean, between her and her family, so she could figure out who she was apart from them…” But the novel is bookended by time spent at home with family in Pennsylvania–a few moments in 1964 and an evening in 2000.

Here are two excerpts from early in the book, from 1964. In both, Jane’s father, Emlin, is trying to leave. In the first, Jane is telling her father goodnight, but notice how the moment is bigger than that, how it expands out.

He began to pull away, but she reached out and circled his neck with her arms and he stayed, patting her back. Somehow it was like summer. His breathing like waves. She wanted him to stay all night. It was a sacrifice to let go, and she felt holy when she made herself do it.

In the second, the phone rings, and Emlin, who’s a doctor, lunges for it. Jane’s mom, Via, yells not to get it. “She reached to grab him, but he was too far away.”  “Don’t!” she yells. But Emlin stands and says, “I have to, Olivia. You know that.” Via responds, “But you just came back from the hospital! You can’t go in again.” And then comes the paragraph below, anchored on that ringing phone but taking us way beyond the phone, this paragraph that is only possible because of the limited omniscient point of view, allowing the narrator to be in the heads of the husband and the wife at the same time.

They stared at each other across a chasm of diverging logic, all the misunderstandings between them crammed between rings of the phone. They stared and wondered how she could possibly mistake life and death for a stubborn whim, how he could care more about strangers than his own family. They knew they had a guest, and that one of their children was watching them anxiously, but they were locked in a brute tug-of-war, beyond the reach of knowledge or other people. They were desperate.

Alice Elliott Dark is also the author of the collection Naked to the Waist and a past recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. She’s an Associate Professor at Rutgers-Newark in the MFA program.

Come back on JANUARY 1st to read how ALICE ELLIOTT DARK spends her days.

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On the first of each month,
a guest writer
shares
how he or she spends the day.

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June 1, 2020: Anna Solomon

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What a read! The Book of V. catapults you from Lily in Trump-era Brooklyn to Vee in Watergate-era DC to Esther in ancient Persia. It’s a book where the names of first wives begin with V and the names of husbands begin with A. It’s the story of three women in three different centuries.

I love it when books stand on the shoulders of other books, and in her Acknowledgements, Anna credits the structure of Michael Cunningham’s The Hours, which is one of my all-time favorite books, as inspiration for her own structure in The Book of V. In perhaps another nod, the black and brown cover of The Book of V. calls to mind the cover of The Hours. In both books, the parallel stories of three women invite the reader to participate in the story, to enter in and look for ways in which the women are alike and for ways in which they’re different. Also in both books, the three narratives speak to each other in countless ways.

In The Book of V., the titles of chapters speak to each other. After “Ablutions” comes “More Serious Ablutions” and after “Another Marriage” comes “Her Stunning Marriage.” The openings of chapters also speak to previous chapters. “Dusk here, too.” Among the chapters are echos of sound (humming), of gesture (knees between legs), of emotion (fear), of food (fish), of body parts (lungs) of activity (sewing), and of things (laundry).

Across the centuries, Esther and Vee and Lily struggle with issues at the heart of women’s rights. As the centuries go by, the women struggle in more and more subtle ways. Life gets easier. Progress is made. But the issues remain the same. As Jennifer Haigh writes, “The Book of V. is a meditation on female power and powerlessness, the stories told about women and the ones we tell about and to ourselves.”

Meet Esther in Ancient Persia. She may be the Queen of Persia, but she’s also captive in her own house.

She is humming. It’s her aunt’s habit, taking abrupt root in her. There is no melody. It’s the vibration she’s after, the echo of herself that steadies her as she walks.

[And, in a lovely moment of connection across centuries, the next line, which begins the next chapter, a Lily one, is “She hums to ward off panic.”]

Meet Vee in Watergate-era DC. Feminism may be changing things, but she’s still struggling into her girdle, and as a political wife, must hide out of sight for a while.

[T]he Pill, which seems to her now, though she is not currently having sex, as critical as food and water–like her own private armor.

Meet Lily in Trump-era Brooklyn. She has the freedom to choose but two little girls and a sick mother.

She wonders, not for the first time, if there is something wrong with her that she can’t deal with what is in fact a completely manageable situation of her own choosing. She is not captive.

Here are two passages I love for their wonderful similes.

“Well,” as her grandmother used to say. Well well well, her grandmother said, as she moved around the house making the beds, or preparing supper, or–as she got older–looking for something she was ashamed of having lost. Well, like a verbal banister. [Vee]

She throws her mind at her childhood like a net. What she catches, though, is not her mother… [Lily]

There’s an omniscient narrator who, like a court jester performing, assumes a different style of storytelling for each of the three main characters. The Lily sections are told at breakneck speed with lots of exclamation points, catching every thought that flits through her head however large or small. The Vee sections are told in a much calmer and more thoughtful, more controlled, manner. And in the Esther sections, the narrator often speaks to the reader and can be instructive as well as playful and wry.

The Book of V. is a Good Morning America Book Club Pick, and what fun to see it giant-sized in Times Square.

Anna is the author of two previous novels–The Little Bride and Leaving Lucy Pear. She also curates the Instagram account @unkempt_real_life: women’s untidied, unvarnished domestic spaces. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children.

Stay well and…

I had wanted to share each step of the publication process with you, but between dealing with my parents’ estates and helping with my son’s wedding (in two weeks), I’m only just meeting the publishing deadlines. I can’t believe it’s been two months since I showed you the cover. And that three months from now, Tidal Flats will be out in the world.

Here’s the short version of what’s been happening:

January and February: edits

March: copyedits, cover design, and requests for blurbs

April and May: a new direction with cover design, first and second galleys (last chance for me to make changes to a manuscript I’ve been making changes to for six years), proofreaders, and interior design (where to put page numbers, chapter numbers, what font to use…)

June: final correction of a few missing commas, jacket design with blurbs, front and back flap design, choosing end sheets and the color of the foil for the spine (I had to ask what these were), and uploading files to the printer

The interior files were uploaded on Friday, and after some missing italics are added to the back cover today, the jacket will also be uploaded. So, sometime today, we will be finished with the book itself.

The main thing I’d like to say about the process for those of you who want to publish a book-length manuscript is this: I LOVE the small-press experience. It’s collaborative. It’s manageable. And I know it would be cool beans to be with one of the big five, but my book is the only book Yellow Pear Press is publishing this fall. That makes me kind of like a queen : ) But here’s the most important thing–finding an editor at whatever size press you choose who wants the same thing you do–the same type of book (literary or commercial or mystery or whatever) and the same beautiful, physical book.

So now I get to put my feet up and rest, right? Not so fast. Now we begin scheduling readings at book stores and visits with book groups–the publicity and marketing portion of the journey. Already I’ve been working on this new website.

Back in September of 2008, at the same time that I began Catching Days, I also put up a small website. A few months ago, when I began thinking about a new one, I had no idea how I wanted it to look or feel. The only thing I knew was that I wanted to be all in one place. As of today, I will be. From now on, you will find Catching Days here with the rest of me.

If you’d like to continue receiving a notification when I post, you will find the RSS Reader button located at the bottom of the CATCHING DAYS page.

Otherwise, I’ll be sending out a newsletter–but not every time I post. More on that soon. If you’re interested, you can sign up at the bottom of the HOME page.

I’m sure there will be kinks to work out, so please send feedback. But hooray! I’m all in one spot–a lovely, light-filled, airy, new place, and I’m happy you’re here with me.

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Aging is an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been.
–David Bowie

This is sixty.

60 is more freedom than I’ve ever had. Really. It’s awesome.

60 is not just feeling the same but feeling better than I have in years.

60 is thinner skin–actually not metaphorically.

60 is loving my new MacBook Pro with touchbar a little too much.

60 is not yet having used age as a reason I can’t do something.

60 is wanting to do just as many things as I wanted to do at 15.

60 is wondering why, still, I’m preoccupied with freedom.

60 is starting to think hashtag before pound.

60 is having lived 21,900 days. Which doesn’t seem like so many. If anyone had asked me I would have guessed a person lived hundreds of thousands of days. But then math is not my strong suit.

60 is my own small house in Provincetown, Massachusetts, on the very tip of Cape Cod, as far as you can go without falling into the sea.

60 is wearing peace sign earrings and a nevertheless she resisted bracelet.

60 is having not as many days as I have lived still to live.

60 is googling life expectancy. Did you know the longer you live the more years they give you?

60 is 4 adult children—all off on their own—plus a son-in-law and a daughter-in-law, and girlfriends. And liking them ALL.

60 is four grandchildren. But we are not your mothers’ grandmothers; we are grandmothers who facetime from airplanes.

60 is, as Cal says, one day older than I was yesterday.

60 is walking in the women’s march.

60 is finally liking yoga.

60 is liking socks.

60 is contributing to the ACLU on a monthly basis.

60 is taking 3 prescriptions–for blood pressure, for eyes, and  for hypothyroidism.

60 is still loving to travel–all the movement and that moment the wheels lift off the ground.

60 is strength training twice a week.

60 is feeling happy.

60 is resisting.

60 is still wanting adventure.

60 is almost never wearing makeup.

60 is finally, finally finding clothes that are comfortable, that look good on me, and that look like me–black leggings, a short little black skirt, a long top, and these kick-ass black ankle boots. That is, when I wear something other than black exercise pants.

60 is more adverbs.

60 is 32 years of marriage and still liking each other. He still makes me laugh. 

60 is being born in 1957, the same year as Caroline Kennedy and Princess Caroline of Monaco.

60 is remembering each of the years and understanding that they add up to 60, that they add up to me.

60 is listening to my body instead of telling my body what to do. It’s resting instead of pushing. It’s eating more vegetables, doing qigong energy movements, and having my body say finally. It’s being amazed as, after a year of trying, the weight just falls off.

60 is listening to Sarah Jaffe’s Clementine, The Killer’s Human, the Branches Darlin’, and Roo Panes’ I Was Here…

60 is preparing to do one last revision on novel #4.

60 is knowing the correct form is to put the names of songs in quotes but liking the way they look in italics better.

60 is adding coconut oil, cinnamon, and turmeric to my coffee.

60 is using the word still a lot.

60 is 6 decades on this planet.

60 is gratitude for each of those days in each of those years.

60 is not yet 70 or 80 or 90. It’s not yet 100.

60 is spending a month in my small house on the water.

60 is being excited about the year ahead and the rest of the journey.

~

She sees that she has before her an important task: to understand that all the things that happened in her life happened to her. That she is the same person who was born, was a child, a girl, a young woman, and now she is old. That there is some line running through her body like a wick.

–Mary Gordon, The Rest of Life

THIS IS 60

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this was 58

this was 57

Continued appreciation to Lindsey Mead for the inspiration.

Here are a few I remembered after the fact–being a Brownie leader, spending every New Year’s Eve until graduate school cooking a fancy meal with friends, sending Bobby to Harlem when I was trying to send him to the Threepenny Opera, a conversation with Peyton Manning that let me know the charm of my youth was gone, watching Heroes on Monday nights from 2006-2010, Friday Night Lights on Tuesday nights from 2006-2011, Glee on Tuesdays/Sundays from 2009-2015, Parenthood from 2010-2015, binge watching House of Cards in 2013.

Last night I discovered this line in Carolyn Heilbrun’s The Last Gift of Time–Life Beyond Sixty:
What one remembers is, I think, a clue to what one wants to be.

2016: Exhausted from the holidays, I arrive in Provincetown in a drenching rain storm. By the time I unload my suitcase and the groceries from the rental into the house behind the wharf house (which is closed for January and February), I’m drenched and standing in a puddle. The next day I wake up with fever. In a few days, the #1truething project is not only over but has worked its magic. At the end of 365 days, I’m now out of whatever hole I’d gotten myself into. I’ve recovered who I was and who I am. And more enormous good news–after months of looking for a house in Provincetown that I love as much as the wharf house, I’ve persuaded the owner of the wharf house to sell it. You just rent it, I said. I love it. But lots of potential road blocks–including a mortgage. My new Massachusetts lawyer and I become best friends. Still, I stay sick for weeks and weeks. I gain 10 pounds. At my six months’ endocrinology checkup in late March, my blood work shows hypothyroidism. Finally an answer. Mid-April I start taking a pill every morning and begin to feel better. I spend my birthday at AWP in LA. The week after that is Writing by Writers in Boulder. And the week after that, I close on the house. In May we add a new WxW event in the Methow Valley of Washington State. At the Seattle airport I pick up Ron Carlson and Andre Dubus, great teachers and WxW regulars, and we start the 5-hour drive west. Sam graduates from college, and even Jack flies in from LA for the weekend event. I rent my little house to pay the mortgage. Family vacation in Florida. Visits to and from the kids, who are now 35, 29, 27, 23–and living in Texas, Alabama, California, and North Carolina. I put a Stronger Together bumper sticker on my Prius. In NY, Cal and I stay at the Park Lane, where they upgrade us to a huge suite on the 46th floor with a mirror-lined dressing room and a living room and a dining room and a piano and so many closets I can’t count, and stairs to the outside, where we can walk all the way around the building. A once-in-a-lifetime experience. Amidst woodland creatures, Ro turns one and we go to Birmingham for the party. I hang a Hillary flag on my house. October is Tomales Bay, the Golden Gate Bridge, and a major clean-out of my closet. After months of worry and posting and talking, it looks as if Hillary will win. I vote and settle in to watch the first woman elected president. But the results come in with too much red. I don’t leave the TV. When she concedes, I burst into tears. The next morning I pack up the Hillary dolls I’d bought for each of the little ones, but thankfully Kathleen persuades me to give them out anyway. The resistance begins. A few days later, WxW is in Lake Tahoe for boot camp. In December, my mother falls, and my parents, now 83, need even more help. After five years, my agent and I decide to part ways. 34 books this year–my favorite is easy, Patti Smith’s M Train. My playlist for the year includes 51 songs–Anthem Lights’ Wildest Dreams, Indigo Girls’ Closer to Fine, Natalie Taylor’s Latch, Emily Barker’s Nostalgia, Ryn Weaver’s Traveling Song…And 107 days in Provincetown, with a record stay in the fall of 19 days. It goes so fast.

1 day to 60

 ~

She sees that she has before her an important task: to understand that all the things that happened in her life happened to her. That she is the same person who was born, was a child, a girl, a young woman, and now she is old. That there is some line running through her body like a wick.

Mary Gordon, The Rest of Life

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2015: Back in Provincetown, I sit still and stare at the water. The last couple of years, all my writing efforts have poured into this current novel and apparently all my self-worth as well. When I see people, they ask if they can buy one of my books yet. I lose my voice. I slip further away from me. The true me. What matters. I come up with a plan to recover myself. I will post #1truething about me every day for a year. When I’m in Georgia, I spend Wednesdays in Atlanta visiting and helping my parents. I begin to revise my novel again, but the one true thing project takes precedence and that feels right. In March I wake up one morning not believing my eyes–huge pieces of sea ice/ice floes/icebergs cover the Provincetown harbor. My hair is thinning and my nails are breaking. My endocrinologist says my numbers are fine. I cut my hair short and turn it red. Columbus is coming into its own with the longest urban whitewater course in the U.S. and a zipline across the Chattahoochee. For my birthday I step off the platform into nothingness and slide across a cable form Georgia to Alabama. Hillary Clinton will run for president. Bobby and Claire are expecting a baby! A couple of years ago I started going through our photos and digitalizing them. No real progress until now when I decide to tackle a year at a time and to finish by December. In addition to the generative workshop in Boulder in the spring and the Tomales Bay workshop in the fall, Writing by Writers adds a boot camp for completed manuscripts. We take our family beach trip to Sarasota for Memorial Day week. For our 30th anniversary, Cal and I take our first trip to the Caribbean, to Petit St. Vincent, where we raise and lower a flag outside our oceanside cottage if we need anything. Until now I’ve shelved every book I read. I begin to cull. I don’t feel that great. I don’t have my normal amount of energy, and when I get sick, it takes forever to get well. Perhaps it’s because I eat too much sugar and cheese and not enough vegetables. Cal and I go back to Canyon Ranch in July. I do a whole 30 but feel terrible the whole time. Throughout the year, there are visits from family, visits to family. In September, Baby Ro is born! And the nights become magical again–filled with little peeps and scratches, little fingers and toes. Only 34 books this year but so many that rise to the top: Niall Williams’ History of the Rain, Joy Castro’s Island of Bones, Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist, Jeanette Winterson’s Lighthousekeeping, Miranda July’s The First Bad Man, Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life (736 pages), Rebecca Solnit’s The Faraway Nearby. 72 songs on my Spotify playlist–Joshua Radin’s Worlds Apart, Lucius’s Wildewoman, O.A.R.’s Peace, The National’s Gospel, LP’s Into the Wild, Distant Cousins’ Fly Away, Andra Day’s Rise Up, and Nate Ruess’ Nothing Without Love… My agent sends my novel out to 4 more editors, and either something’s missing or it’s too literary or it’s too commercial or just nothing. 92 days in Provincetown.

2 days to 60

 ~

She sees that she has before her an important task: to understand that all the things that happened in her life happened to her. That she is the same person who was born, was a child, a girl, a young woman, and now she is old. That there is some line running through her body like a wick.

Mary Gordon, The Rest of Life

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2014: My agent sends me a note: “I’m so excited about your new novel, and I have a very good feeling that THIS ONE IS IT!” On the first trip of the year, Cal and I get snowed in in Provincetown. In February, one night I’m in Seattle at a VIDA party at Hugo House as part of AWP; the next, I’m in Columbus at a Mardi Gras debutant party where Jack is an escort to one of the Queen’s maids. Back in PT,  a neighbor brings me a plate of sausages and peppers. In March we have our second Writing by Writers event–a 3-day workshop at the Colorado Chautauqua in Boulder–with Pam, BK Loren, and Ben Percy. It’s in March that for the first time I stay in the wharf house, where at high tide the water swooshes under the house, and I know I don’t want to stay anywhere else. From the outskirts of PT in The Days Cottages, I’ve slowly moved further and further in. But the wharf house is already booked for most of the year. While Dani Shapiro reads my manuscript, I take a break from the novel to revise an old story. I trade in my Lexus for a black Prius–the first car I’ve bought thinking only of myself since my twenties. Family trip to the beach for Memorial Day, and family can rain down upon me because I have my week a month to myself. “Hidden Tracks” is published in the summer edition of Contrary. Kathleen has another baby. Wynn is born in September–more little fingers and toes, more tiny murmurs, more magical nights. In the fall Sam heads to France for a semester–the Davidson program now takes place in Tours, where I lived for a year. In October it’s WxW at Tomales Bay again. At SFO, I pick up Andre Dubus and Kwame Dawes, who sings a stunning No Woman, No Cry… And Pam finally makes it to Columbus and meets Cal. In November he and I fly to France to see Sam. All of us visit the apartment building where I lived 34 years before, the school where I taught, the market where I shopped. Cal asks me not to go to Provincetown in December so I try that. It will be the only month I’m not there out of 51 and still counting. My agent sends my fourth novel to 10 editors, and it’s not a match, or it’s too slow, or it doesn’t pull together. 36 books for the year. Bon Iver’s Beth/Rest (the Rare Book Room version), Passenger’s Let Her Go, lots of Jasmine Thompson, and Van Morrison’s Into the Mystic… Last year I stayed in 5 different places in Provincetown–this year it’s 3–the penthouse, the wharf house, and the boathouse. 82 days.

3 days to 60

 ~

She sees that she has before her an important task: to understand that all the things that happened in her life happened to her. That she is the same person who was born, was a child, a girl, a young woman, and now she is old. That there is some line running through her body like a wick.

Mary Gordon, The Rest of Life

c

2013: One week a month in Provincetown. Space is opening all around me. I plan ahead, run the dates by Cal, and start booking flights. In January, I stay at The Watermark Inn. It’s closed. But I’ve stayed here before and it’s Provincetown. So just me in an entire inn. At first it’s a little spooky and then I love the darkness and the sound of nothing but wind and waves. I start a new novel. Blank pages everywhere. February is AWP in Boston and my last writing group in Provincetown. Even the universe is trying to help. I visit Jack, who’s living and working in LA. A week later, at the beginning of March, while Kathleen and her family are visiting, Jack calls to say his stomach hurts. Within hours I’m headed back to California–he’s having an emergency appendectomy. Kathleen is pregnant again. For my birthday, Cal comes to Provincetown for the first time–and he likes it too. Pam asks me to be on the board of the new nonprofit she’s creating with Karen Nelson–Writing by Writers. It feels like progress to be on the other side of a writing workshop. In May, the Days Cottages at the top of this blog, which are just outside Provincetown in Truro, open back up. I drag a mattress from one of the adorable tiny bedrooms into the den and plop it on top of the pull-out sofa so I can sleep looking at the water and the Pilgrim Monument. Cal and I go to Canyon Ranch–his 1st visit, my 14th. All my writing efforts pour into this new novel. No stories or essays. Very few blog posts. I start reading a Shakespeare play a month, beginning with Henry the IV, Part One, thought to be his first. Everybody comes home for a visit in July. Before Davidson starts back, I take Sam and his girlfriend to the beach. Lily is born in August, and just like I did with Mack, I spend a week helping Kathleen–doing one of my favorite things–getting up with the tiny baby in the middle of the night. The first Writing by Writers workshop takes place in October at Tomales Bay in California, and over the Golden Gate Bridge I drive again. On the way home I add a visit to Jack. Cal and I visit Sam in North Carolina and Bobby and Claire in Alabama. I’m now on some drug to prevent migraines, but when I head to Vermont to be on a panel–Building Communities of Readers and Writers–at the Brattleboro Literary Festival, there’s no doubt the drug is making me crazy. I hand the car keys to Pam and call the doctor, who tells me to stop taking it. My mother turns 80, and I fly to Sarasota for her birthday–taking 80 candy bars (each one numbered). Everybody comes home for Christmas. 35 books this year with the highlights being Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams and Robin Black’s Life Drawing–each one short but sweet. My agent sends my third novel (no one except for me likes my second) to 11 editors, and some love it but no one enough. I’m spending more time helping my parents. By way of Spotify, not albums or CDs–I listen to Motopony’s King of Diamonds, Fleet Foxes’ Montezuma, Mumford & Sons’ Winter Winds. And a new thing to count–80 days in Provincetown.

4 days to 60

 ~

She sees that she has before her an important task: to understand that all the things that happened in her life happened to her. That she is the same person who was born, was a child, a girl, a young woman, and now she is old. That there is some line running through her body like a wick.

Mary Gordon, The Rest of Life

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2012: After I give my lecture and reading, I start making the changes to my first novel that my agent (late addition to yesterday’s post) has requested, Tori Amos’ Silent All These Years and Regina Spector’s Us on repeat.  Cal comes to Vermont for graduation. When I get back home, I put my feet up and breathe. I’m exhausted. Burned out. And I’m getting headaches and visual migraines. I need to stop doing so much. At AWP in Chicago, I go to a book launch party for Cheryl Strayed. She wrote the January 1 essay in the How We Spend Our Days series. For my birthday Cal and I go to Seaside and stay in a honeymoon cottage. I resign from Contrary. In May Cal and I go to Fort Worth for Mack’s first birthday, and Jack and Sam graduate within hours of each other on opposite coasts. We split up so both have a group to cheer as they walk across the stage. Wedding emails and texts are flying. In June I stop submitting to the writing group but will still read the other submissions, and I head to Provincetown to finally stay in one of the Days Cottages at the top of this blog. I fall in love–their retro feel, the screen doors, the line of roofs that never seems to end, the way I can look out at PT. In July I make my first trip to Maine. August is a wedding party for Bobby and Claire in Birmingham. Sam has chosen Davidson, so in the fall I get to head back to North Carolina to my alma mater. And just like that—a f t e r  3 2  y e a r s—no lights leak from under doors of children’s rooms. I have made it to Part Five. The first week and the last week of September I go back to Provincetown, staying in the Days Cottages both times. In October I clean out the attic, have lunch in NY with my agent, and see Crosby, Stills, and Nash at the Beacon Theater with Cal. In November I do a two-week residency at Ragdale. The rectangular Playroom, which is my room, has a round window and stairs to a cupola, where I work. When I’m done with a page, I launch it down the stairs. President Obama is re-elected. I resign from Hunger Mountain. After Christmas Bobby and Claire get married in a very cool brewery with little white lights strung across the ceiling and a CD wedding favor with a playlist of their favorite songs, some of which become mine. The Alabama Shakes’ I Found You, Ingrid Michaelson’s You and I… 48 books this year–back to back reads of Rachel Cusk’s The Bradshaw Variations topping the charts. My agent sends my first novel to 18 editors, and some love it but no one enough. My parents begin to need help with things. I listen to so many wonderful but random songs this year–Yael Meyer’s Shed Their Fear, Amos Lee’s Windows Are Rolled Down, and Lucy Schwartz’s I Don’t Know a Thing…

5 days to 60

~

She sees that she has before her an important task: to understand that all the things that happened in her life happened to her. That she is the same person who was born, was a child, a girl, a young woman, and now she is old. That there is some line running through her body like a wick.

Mary Gordon, The Rest of Life

c