A year and three days ago, almost to the hour, I stood in the kitchen of our New York City apartment and thought about lunch. It was sunny outside, but cold, and I didn’t want to try and stretch the zipper of my down jacket over my very pregnant stomach. My husband typed away at his hastily built standing desk on the marble island. He’d been planning to start two weeks of paternity leave once I gave birth, but of course life loves a good PLOT TWIST, and here’s a good one for you: Five days earlier, he came home from work complaining of a stomachache that increased rapidly in severity, until he swore he had to go to the ER. I stayed home, heavily pregnant and silently (okay not so silently) cursing him for taking the risk of walking into a hospital waiting room with this confusing, nebulous threat of a virus hanging over us. People were just starting to throw around the words pandemic and quarantine.
Read moreGRAPEFRUIT CARDAMOM OLIVE OIL CAKE
Heavy rainfall three days ago melted the heaps of snow that had piled up against the boxwoods in front of the house. Once the clouds cleared, the sun appeared against a sky painted all lustrous, sheer blue—ice on the roof dripped in slow, languid trickles down the kitchen windows. The intervening days have been cold but sunny: they feel like spring, like I’m stepping outside into the words green and fresh.
Read moreMAPLE PARSNIP SCONES
Much of what makes life life—something about which people want to write songs and pen novels; something full of joy and shivers of unexpected (and expected) pleasure—lies in watching how easily you can transform ordinary things into more.
Taking disparate elements and making them more than the sum of their parts happens all over the place. Take, for example, poetry. How many times have you said or used the words “vacuum cleaner” or “UPS driver” or “house” or “thief” — but then someone (in this case the poet Ron Carlson) puts them next to each other in this very specific order and suddenly they mean something bigger and so sweeping that you read them again and again, saving them in your notes to remember to write about right here, to all of you:
Read moreSPICED FLOURLESS CHOCOLATE CAKE
I still can’t shake the strangeness I’ve been feeling all week—nor do I think I should—and I can’t entirely separate myself from it at any point. But for the sake of breathing and being a positive, cheerful presence, I’m trying to parse through it in the back of my mind while I go about my days: taking a run, cleaning the kitchen floor, rolling out quiche crust, changing diapers, slicing avocado for sandwiches, talking to my sister, and so on. In lieu of trying to put into words here what you’re all already feeling (because really, do I need to join the chorus?), I’ll just say that this week’s email from On Being was quite good and helped to articulate some of my jumble of thoughts.
Read moreHomemade Twix Bars
I’m sitting here in the front room listening to quiet music—I’ve spent an exhausting few days rearranging all the furniture downstairs: dismantling an entire wall of glass-and-metal bookshelves laden with what felt like 100 books. I moved my small white tulip table from the breakfast room into the airy nook by the front door, making a bright spot to sit and write that overlooks the street and the water just beyond.
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