A

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

x

A

May 1, 2021: Jeff G. Peters

x

Jeff Peters is a writer who is passionate about so much. He’s the most extroverted introvert I’ve ever met. And it’s difficult to find a photo of him where he’s not surrounded by friends he loves. Whatever Jeff does, he does with his whole heart.

You will also enjoy his piece on eclectic London-based artists, Gilbert and George.

Gilbert & George call their art, sculptures, though they may not appear in the manner you might think. The artists have presented themselves as living sculptures in museums, galleries, pubs, public streets and a host of other locales. So they aren’t traditional sculptures forever frozen in time, but instead appear as vibrant, real three dimensional art.

Jeff was also a writer and producer of Run Across Cuba, which was released in 2017. Run Across Cuba follows Alexis Garcia as he runs more than a thousand miles from the eastern most tip to the western most end of Cuba. This journey takes Alexis back to Cuba, which he had fled by kayak twenty-three years earlier. As part of the documentary, Marlene Guerra-Garcia interviewed people all across Cuba providing a window into the daily lives of the Cuban people, the power of the Cuban spirit, its natural beauty, and historical significance. It’s an inspiring story about hope, courage, and freedom.

A

But these days, Jeff rarely has time to write as he is the owner of the magical independent bookstore East End Books Ptown where he curates a collection of books in print, ebooks, audiobooks, vinyl albums, really cool magazines and journals. I swear he’s read everything in the store. Jeff is also an enthusiastic board member of the Provincetown Film Society.

As if all that weren’t too much already, Jeff has recently started East End Literary Arts (EELA), a literary nonprofit that will publish East End Arts Literary Review, a select list of books, and hold an annual East End Literary Arts Book Festival. This project is so new the website is still under development. Here’s the mission statement:

To bring together readers and writers to create diverse communities, and to expose participants to new ideas and authors in order to inspire a life-long love of books and reading.

If you’re looking for a good cause or an independent bookstore to keep in business, please consider making a donation to East End Books Ptown.

And I want to leave you with this event, which is Jeff personified. He has organized a private literary salon to benefit the Provincetown Film Festival that will take place June 13th featuring Christopher Castellani and Matthew Lopez. And there are a few tickets still available!

Since my grandmother took me to Europe for one of those Cartan twenty-one countries in twenty-three days tours back in the sixties, I’ve loved to travel. In recent years, I will often arrive home from a trip, unpack, repack, and leave the next day for somewhere else. I get some of my best writing done in airports and on airplanes. I love the movement, the getting to and from, the new places, the old places again, the roar of the engine right before the plane barrels down the runway and that moment when the front wheels come off the ground.

Many of you know that Cal and I live in Columbus, Georgia, and also that I love Provincetown. I discovered it when I took a class at the Fine Arts Work Center back in 2006. Over the years, each time I went back, I loved it more. But it was the summer of 2012 when I fell for it like crazy. And in 2016, I bought a house here. Since January of 2013, I’ve been in Provincetown every month except for one.

Until this year.

On March 2nd, 2020, the day before I left Provincetown for book tour events in Atlanta and Birmingham, people were just beginning to talk about stocking up in advance of Covid-19. I went to the store too, thinking even if I couldn’t fly, I could drive the nineteen hours. I was thinking going to the grocery store before I left would be the thing that would make it possible for me to come back.

Cal and I have been sheltering in Columbus since March 15th. For us, going to a restaurant on March 12th felt perfectly fine, but when we sat down at a table on March 14th, it did not. And that was that. No grocery stores, no one in the house, no children, no friends, just wiping the groceries left on the front porch, letting mail and packages sit for three days, and having the wine dropped in the back of the car where we’d left the exact change.

When I drove away from the house yesterday morning at 8:45 am, I had not been by myself in a car for over three months. Deciding to come to Provincetown was not a decision I made lightly or by myself. In addition to so many more important things, Covid-19 has also deprived us of our independence. What we do affects others in our pod. Cal is the other in my pod. We talked about driving the nineteen hours, but that would involve not only the driving risks but our creaky bones in sitting positions for hours and hours and at least one hotel, and gas stations and bathrooms galore.

On June 14th, Cal and I ate outside at a restaurant. As Massachusetts reopened, the metrics were continuing to trend down. Delta was capping seating on all flights at sixty percent and leaving middle seats open. The ferry was going to run again. Earlier in June, I wasn’t ready to even consider flying; now I was. But Cal still wasn’t. We worked our way through it, and he said even if he wasn’t ready, knowing how much it meant to me to be in Provincetown, he was okay with my trying it.

When I drove into the Atlanta airport, the parking meter issued a ticket without my having to touch anything except the ticket, which I reasoned had been in the box long enough. Still, I put it up and sanitized. Finding a parking place was not a problem.

I wore long sleeves and a baseball cap. Everything I had with me was zipped away from any flying germs, so I almost forgot to empty the water out of my bottle. I avoided Clear and went to pre-check where I did not have to get within six feet of the checker to be allowed into the line. The six-feet floor markers were unnecessary. Only one person was ahead of me, and she was done by the time I got to the front of the line.

The TSA agent was masked and gloved. He asked for my driver’s license and for me to lower my mask. Then came the tricky part. He tried to give me my driver’s license back. My first thought was there was no way I was taking it back. But of course I did, and then I didn’t know what to do with it so I stepped to the side, hesitated for just a moment wondering what sanitizer would do to a license that had so much information on it the agent didn’t even need my boarding pass, and then poured a pool of sanitizer into my hands and rubbed the license and my hands around in it.

Next obstacle. Again, not people. The gray bins. I was supposed to move them from underneath to the top and put my suitcases inside. I used my shirttail. And when I got to the other side and got my bags back, I sanitized.

At the escalator, there were signs to keep your distance, which people were doing. Waiting for the trains, the same signs. Then I remembered I didn’t have to get on a train, I could walk. In fact, I usually walked for the exercise instead of taking the train.

Going up the escalator at the terminal, I couldn’t remember the number of my gate, and it didn’t show up on my phone. That’s another thing you’ll be doing all day. In addition to using hand sanitizer, you’ll be putting your passcode into your phone what feels like a thousand times because facial recognition won’t recognize your masked self. At the top of the escalator, I found the flight boards, and that was a weird moment. Of the ten boards that list the flights and the gates, only three and a half had anything on them. The rest were empty, just like all the blue seats at the Trump rally in Tucson.

The main area of terminal A was full of people (not normal full but still) and for a few minutes, I felt like I was in a video game trying to make my way to the gate without getting within six feet of anyone. I ducked out of the flow a time or two because I could feel people close behind me. Most wore masks. Maybe ten percent did not. And then another ten percent who had them around their chins.

After successfully driving the hour and a half from Columbus without a bathroom stop, now I needed to find one. My gate was at the far end of the terminal, and I thought a bathroom nearer the gate would be less populated. But it was being cleaned. I turned around to find another, and then I turned back. I had plenty of time. Why not wait for a clean bathroom? After five minutes, it was open, and I was not only the first but the only one in there.

At the gate, it was easy to stand away from people. The agent boarded the plane so that I was never closer than six feet to anyone. I didn’t have to wait on the jetway or at any time during the boarding process. The closest I got to anyone was the flight attendant as I boarded the plane, and I whizzed right by her.

The flight was full at the sixty-percent cap, and that felt safe. I had the window seat next to an exit (more space) and ended up with no one else on my row. There were people behind me and in front of me. With a wipe, I cleaned around me and above me. I didn’t recline. I declined the pre-bagged snack and water. They kept the lights low. No one spoke. I didn’t even read. I just sat there. Try as I might, I couldn’t make it fun. After we landed, I thought I would just wait until everyone got off, but people were keeping their distance and when it was my turn, I went.

In Boston, the water taxi is not yet back in business, so I took a Lyft to the ferry. Very few drivers so that was a fifteen-minute wait. I handled my own bags and was in the car less than ten minutes. I sanitized.

I had a two-hour wait, and I’d only eaten a few nuts driving to the airport. So I headed across the street to a restaurant with a large outdoor area. After giving my name and contact info to the host for tracking, I pulled the menu up on my phone and ordered guacamole and chips. And a margarita on the rocks. Closer to fun, but it still felt risky.

Only one ferry was running to Provincetown, and it was the first day for that. I was on the last run of the day. They are temporarily capping their passenger limit too, but it was unnecessary. There were only about twenty of us. I sat outside on an upper deck. As we were about to dock in Provincetown, the captain reminded us to wear our masks and to set a good example. I think he meant as visitors though, not as people.

When I opened the door to my house at 7:45 pm, I stood there for a minute and took it all in, felt the peace of being in the one place that feels right to me beyond anything I have the words to express, and then I took everything I was wearing off, including my hat, stuffed it in the washer, and got in the shower.

I had walked the last leg, and when I saw my house, it was almost too much. I think I’d been feeling as if I really might never be here again. And it still doesn’t feel quite real. Not only did I not love the traveling, I didn’t even enjoy it. Which, I have to say, surprised me. Out in the world, where I hadn’t been in a while, I was masked and vigilant for eleven straight hours. Most people and entities along the way did what they could to lower risks. And I took the risks in as smart a way as I knew how. That’s the thing. If you’re contemplating getting out there, be as smart as you know how, and you’ll need a little luck too. I hope luck was with me yesterday. There are not many reasons I would do it again, but I will to get back home.

And then to get back here again.

A

On January 4th, a serious nor’easter hit Provincetown. The main problem was flooding, and my house is up on stilts. So I wasn’t worried. The power did go off, but Eversource got it right back on. The next day, a neighbor called. Giant ice cycles and blocks of ice had formed under the house. Yep, the electricity had come back on, but my heating system had not. When my friend opened the front door, it appeared to be raining inside. The deck had been demolished between Christmas and New Year’s for a planned rebuilding. So picture me opening the door nine days later–no sheet rock, no floor, no kitchen, nothing at all out the sliding glass doors except for the sad, empty ocean. It would be five months before things would be back to normal.

~

Thomas Lee Newberry

At five am in the pre-dawn darkness of March 9th, while I was staying at my neighbor’s house in Provincetown, a large bird landed on the balcony and began bellowing for all he was worth. The preceding days had been cold and harsh and devoid of birds. I almost got up to see what he looked like, but I was so cozy under the covers. Twenty minutes later, the phone rang. My father had died at five am after a long struggle with Alzheimers. I wrote his obituary, which I had actually already started, but my sisters and brother and I (five of us) had a hard time choosing a photo. Finally I found one we could all agree on, and I made it black and white for the newspaper.

~

Evelyn Mason Newberry

On July 24th, the day before what would have been my parents’ 64th wedding anniversary, I was shopping at the Party Store, hoping to find some fun stuff to celebrate with my mother the next day. She had been in poor health for a couple of years–with difficulty walking, seeing, breathing. I texted my sisters, I’m not feeling it. Still, I managed to choose some plastic coconuts and leis–my parents had loved Hawaii. At the checkout, I asked about their return policy, not something I often did. My sister called a couple of hours later. My mother was worsening–the new pain medicine was not working and her breathing was more labored than usual. I was getting my hair cut when I realized that if she died that day, they would never have spent an anniversary apart. And she did it. Around six thirty, wearing a multi-colored tie-dyed t-shirt, she died peacefully, my sister beside her; minutes later, a rainbow shooting across the sky. I wrote her obituary but had no time to find a photo so my daughter offered to choose one. All five of us liked the one she chose.

~

It wasn’t until August 9th when I was going through photos for my son’s upcoming rehearsal dinner that I discovered the original photo from which my daughter had cropped my mother’s picture. Without any of us realizing it, my daughter had chosen the other half of the same photo from which I had chosen my father’s photo.

~

So that’s what’s been happening with me. This morning I updated my reading list. And now I’ve written something. Hope all is well with all of you. Send reading, writing, and life news from your parts of the world.

Another amazing week in Provincetown–this one including a visit from a friend. Number one on my agenda was reading through my novel. Happy to report the beginning is still WORKING! But solve one problem and you can see another… This time the middle seemed heavy so I got to practice my cutting skills. Also, the prose felt see-jane-run-ish. I said to my friend that I needed to find an app to increase my vocabulary. But I have a pretty good vocabulary–at least in my head. Perhaps what I needed was not more words but a better way to reach the words I already know. I keep a book of poetry on my desk, and the next day, when I noticed the same thing, I read a poem. Which sparked new sentences here and there. Which made me wonder if the problem was less the words and more the linear thinking that is my default position. On Monday and Tuesday, I put the edits in the computer. Now I’m going to take a week off and then read the novel again–with doses of poetry and my fingers crossed that it’s done. On my way home shortly. xo ~cyn

I’ve just cleared off my desk leaving only my novel notes, hoping I will focus on that and not set off into one of my twenty-seven other enticing projects, each enclosed in a separate, clear plastic folder. Of course my computer is still on the desk, so here I am. Also, I want to order new pillowcases. The process of getting back into the novel has been tough–realizing I’ve written 4 finished and polished novels since January of 2013–all the same basic story but each with a critically different component. At the end of 2014 the original, in 2015 the original with a voicey storytelling overlay, in 2016 a key event of the story moved to the beginning and another key event deleted, and now in 2017 returning to the original beginning but without the event I dropped last year. So, yes, some low moments. But in my notes, I found a copy of Dean Young’s letter to his nephew Seth Pollins, where he writes that all the time that seems wasted is the time that must be spent. I’ve taped the letter to the wall next to me. Now I’m going to work. Happy spending of your day wherever you are. xo ~cyn

Yesterday, when Cal left early, I had lots of plans. But turns out I had no interest in sitting down to work, no interest in starting any of my hundreds of projects. Instead, I washed towels and shook rugs and changed sheets and swept. It’s the first time I’ve stayed in my little house long enough to clean, but I’ve been here 2 weeks and as of today I have 13 days ahead of me still. This morning I woke up and thought postcard. That’s what I want to send. One of the first things I did after I bought my little house was to order a desk. I knew right where I would put it–in the corner of the bedroom. That’s where I’m sitting now as I write to you–ready to dive back into novel #4 one l a s t time. Happy spending of your day wherever you are. xo ~cyn

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

X

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

c

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

c

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