Occasions

On a sunny Saturday we hosted a birthday party for a loved one. Soundtrack: Heijera — the entire LP front and back twice. I can never get enough Jaco. We enjoyed lasagna, green salad, and sage and parsley garlic bread elbow to elbow around the Saarinen. In a departure from my usual French drama, we drank Famiglie Montepulciano d’Abruzzo 2020, with a nose of sweet leather half-buried in the garden, mouthfeel like butter, and a grape jelly finish. After dinner we walked to the retaining pond, collecting Exceptional Sticks from the woods along the way. ...

Laura Lucia Roberto Anderson born March 20, 1918 died March 15, 2010 * *Her nickname was Ruby. She and my grandfather posed for this picture after Mass one sunny Palm Sunday on Long Island. Maybe they stopped by the bakery on their way home that day. I imagine my mother and her two brothers riding in the back seat of the car, holding their buttered rolls and watching the buildings blur through the windows.

A cold Sunday afternoon with friends. We caught some serious air on the jumps, Jack. We sledded until dark, and then fifty percent of our family fell asleep in the car on the way home.

I could barely believe the beauty of Manhattan Beach. Lemon trees and succulents in nearly every front yard, warm and fragrant breezes, my feet in soft sand after a painfully long winter. I’d never before attended a wedding held outside in the rain, but now I can heartily recommend it: huge smiles peeking out from under dripping raincoat hoods and umbrellas, steam rising from the pavement, the sound of water all around. ...

We take the Metro to the National Mall to watch the Arsenal of Democracy World War II Victory Capitol Flyover. We walk to the western slope of the Washington Monument grounds and stake our claim. A black dog sits nearby and pants in the bright sun. We eat our simple picnic lunch on a blue plaid blanket in a dense forest of legs, lawn chairs and tripods. My girl passes the strawberries around, one eye on the sky. ...

The tender friendships one gives up, on parting, leave their bite on the heart, but also a curious feeling of a treasure somewhere buried. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Southern Mail, 1929, translated from French by Curtis Cate The truest, most loving friends in the world helped us pack our truck and clean our house on a Friday night. Kids raced around, got underfoot and played hot potato. Crazy Phil discovered some 20 year-old homemade pickles in my basement. Despite the corroded lids, despite the fact that the pickles were floating around in a murky, green water filled with unidentifiable objects of plant origin, he ate them. Then he passed them around. Video of that disgusting event here. There was pizza and a little drinking and my girlfriends washed my bathrooms, packed my food, washed my fridges, and slipped care packages of new toys and goodies into the truck for us to discover on our arrival. Their acts of kindness that night filled my heart to overflowing. ...

The first friend I ever had, someone who came into my life when I was just three years old, sent me these two photos taken on our first day of kindergarten. I cannot get enough of the Donnie and Marie? Luke and Leia? lunch box I am carrying, or the crazy 70’s get ups, or her blond pigtails, and can you believe the adorable red flower I am holding for my teacher? We were so little and sweet, and had no idea that bus steps were supposed to be taken single file. We were innocents, pure in intention, ready to love and be loved, a universe of possibility in tiny packages.

My interrupted photographs illustrate the Winter 2015 issue of online literary nonfiction journal Brevity Magazine. I clucked over this project like a mother hen, and gave it the majority of my spare time in November and December, to the dismay of those I love. Now this project is out in the world, and I bend to the task of redemption.

Three things that remind me of you: the Hillstreet Blues theme song plum eyeshadow seashells You were the first, the first one to push through the membrane between our worlds. I touched the soft stretch marks on your belly after you’d gone, while you were still warm. Hours later in the shower, I stood helpless under the water as your final minutes repeated over and over again in front of my unseeing eyes. ...

My gift wrapping this year started with a walk in the woods to gather bits and ended with brown paper packages tied up with string. All of our gifts were handmade, out of necessity and also just because. I’m feeling super-inspired by Mary Jo Hoffman’s STILL project lately, so much so that I just ordered a plate for my tripod, and have plans to finally learn how to use my bounce flash once and for all. ...