Cat is out of the bag
this is not good for the cat or for the bag, but the alternative was worse
Well, look who we have here! Glad you stopped by. This arrived later than usual because I thought a lot about whether to send it out or not. I decided to send it, with warnings.
The sign is a heads-up, this newsletter will include a piece of news that is less than cheerful for me. (It is personal and painful and I’m not looking for a response, I just want to not have to hide it anymore. So, okay? We can just put it out there?)
It is interesting, isn’t it, that once you are forewarned, you can handle almost everything—it’s the blindsiding that is so difficult.
Although in today’s world, happenings are all so extraordinarily monstrous that it is hard to use the word extraordinary—our average lives tend to include a lot of bad news: I wrote the one essay about a moment of epiphany surrounding this truth—don’t worry, it has a feel-good ending. (It’s very short - read it if you haven’t yet!)
One thing that we can do to help the breaking, bleeding world is to be aware of situations where we can lend a hand and do so when we can, and gracefully step aside where we are no longer helpful.
I wonder if we will ever be inured to bad news, and simply take it all in stride?
I like the phrase, to take something in stride - for it assumes that we are moving forward to begin with and will continue to do so—that our usual state of being might not be just sitting around waiting for news, but being out and about, walking somewhere with purpose. Presumably we are striding somewhere important or compelling or at least interesting. It’s what I love best about NYC - most people are striding.
That’s why locals get so irritated when tourists impede our progress, (stop at the top of an escalator, or when a whole tour group pauses at an intersection of busy sidewalks blocking the corner). We are striding, and they are clustering to figure out where they are heading next, or just meandering about in a clumsy lump of jostling shopping bags, water bottles, heavy backpacks, and inane conversation—and they are not leaving room for people who are striding to pass them by.
Where are you striding to today?
Writing News:
I have been sending out stories which means that I’ve been also fielding rejections. It’s part and parcel of being a writer. (I love this phrase “part and parcel” - apparently a legal term from the 1500s - yet we still use the redundant little idiom! What I particularly like is the word “parcel”—for some reason the connotation of 1920s high society comes to mind. Busy urban people get parcels: Hercule Poirot or Nick and Nora. “Parcels” are held by doormen and handed to women in beaded hats who are rushing home from a party, “packages” lurk in postboxes in locales where dogs bite mailmen.)
I have a really cool event coming up this week on Tuesday at 7:30pm and I’m super-nervous and excited! I have to tell a ghost story by a fire! Not to read one, but to TELL one. Yes, I am a featured storyteller at Sacha Grahams’s next Ghost Stories by the Fire on October 24th at Barrow’s Intense Ginger in Industry City. You can sign up here. This event celebrates the launch of Amy Grech’s A Shadow of Your Former Self. It is incredibly scary to me to give up the safety of holding a book in my hand! but ‘tis the season for scary things!
This week, ye olde artsy self attended Dine in the Dark (a blindfolded dining experience) - which was fun to do once but wasn’t nearly the immersive sensual experience I had anticipated (it was more like a game show where people yelled out the kind of sushi they thought they were eating); I attended an intimate bookstore event launching Jimin Han’s newest novel The Apology whose main character is 105 years old! I attended my daughter’s fall choir concert at St Paul’s Chapel (which was incredible - a program of only music composed by famous classical composers while they were teenagers) she had two amazing solos (soli! but I don’t want to sound pretentious). I saw a couple of movies too - just to fill in the rest of the week (only one was in the theater).
I also was so proud to attend the Manhattan Community Arts Breakfast (it’s for people whose public arts projects got City Funding). I saw a glorious wind trio called Sugar Hill Salon (if you ever are in search of a chamber ensemble for any of your galas or intimate home events, they are amazing) The music they chose was syncopated and jazzy and livened up the room: it was a surprise burst of lemon in a fluffy chocolate cake, or the moment on a crisp autumn day that you emerge from your forest hike and catch the scent of the fireplace that is waiting for you. The music was simultaneously unexpected, familiar and lovely.
I also loved the second performers, an Asian company of dancers who were dressed as egg-mushrooms and moved in a way that resembled an acrobatic Blue Man group - binbin Factory is a quirky and magnificently talented dance troupe. Very deeply human.
Later in the week, I went to an art opening for wearable art (which might be my new favorite thing):
It was a good week—except for my 31st wedding anniversary. If you only read this newsletter for upbeat, good cheer—that will resume in force next week. If you want to know what’s been going on in my personal life these last 12 weeks, read on.
The bad news (skip if you are looking for happy things):
Seriously, skip this if you want to. It’s personal.
On June 28th, ten days after his mother passed away, Lawrence moved out of our home. He wasn’t seeing anyone else, and we weren’t fighting over anything in particular, he simply wanted to separate. He informed me he wasn't happy, hadn’t been for a long time, found the situation intolerable, and left. Since that day, he has made it strikingly clear he isn’t interested in ever reconciling. He has informed me that the simple truth is that he doesn’t love me anymore, doesn’t find me at all attractive, and never will again.
That is why I was clearing his mom’s place without him. That is also why I had to learn to drive again. I am not sorry for doing either of those things. I just wish it had been for different reasons.
This article explains everything. I didn’t write it. It is an illuminating article about long term marriages published in The Atlantic from 2020. I didn’t read it in 2020. I hadn’t know it existed in 2020. I wish I had.
Current situation details (again feel free to skip): After an initial summer of silence, we have been meeting in the presence of a therapist and it is clear that while he recognizes this is a devastating blow to me and to our kids, he is also elated to finally escape marriage and is eagerly looking forward to his solo next chapter. He hopes I can take this well and be amicable in our eventual permanent split, whenever/however that looks. I am doing what I can to respect his desire for a happy life on his own, and am looking for healthy ways to continue my own life story without him. I refuse to live in a tragedy, so while this chapter began in June in a surprise landscape of sorrow, confusion, regret, financial uncertainty, enforced solitude, and fear of the future, I have spent the last three months quietly negotiating this new landscape. Composing this newsletter weekly helped me to focus on whatever positive things were going on as I clung to (it turns out) futile hope of some kind of solution. I still do not know what is next for me, but I intend to maintain dignity and my children’s well-being as I find a way to continue to move ahead. Stay tuned.
I will begin striding forward again as soon as I can figure out the correct direction to walk.
(Today I told a friend that at this point it feels like having a piece of glass deep in your foot. Mostly you can function and the pain is minimal, but every once in a while you step wrong and the pain is crippling.)
I tell you all this not to get pity but so that you can perhaps be inspired in your own lives to maintain course, face your truths, get through your personal hells and keep on creating.
In the meantime, if you know of an upcoming teaching spot or have a place for a writing workshop leader, I would like to build my resume; if you have a book event that needs a second or third author to participate either a reading or discussion; a manuscript you need edited; a panel or speaking engagement that needs filling; an event that needs hosting; or any other paid gig that you think I might be interested in, I encourage you to contact me directly.
If you have ever worked with me in any capacity and can think of something good to say about my work ethics, power of my writing, leadership skills, editing or teaching capacity, or any other work-related or character trait you might want to mention, I need recommendations for my LinkedIn Profile. Please click here to post - even if it’s just a one-line endorsement.
If I am going to stay in NYC, I will likely need all the freelance work I can get. And my goal is to stay in this glorious messy city if at all possible.
GORGEOUS RANDOM FINAL THOUGHT (you can all safely resume reading):
There was one politician who spoke at the Community Arts Breakfast last week whose words resonated so much in the room that people caught themselves wiping away tears. She listed the earth-shattering events that we have survived over the last five years. The long list included the pandemic, Ukraine, Israel/Hamas, #metoo, insurrection at the Capitol, racially motivated murders, #icantbreathe and many many more of the huge political and societal changes that are still continuing to reverberate and affect us daily - but also things we have already put behind us (flash floods in Brooklyn, random attacks in subways, undrinkable water, apocalyptic red skies, collapses of buildings, bridges and local parking garages, tornadoes in places that have never had them, libraries closing, books being banned) - and the list went on easily for two minutes.
She was reminding us of our resilience. We are still striding forward.
Then, she pointed out that any solutions that were found for any of these globally devastating events were not first imagined by politicians at work on a whiteboard but by a creative mind — one who built or inspired a community to eventually get a politician to pay attention.
With these words, this local politician inspired a room full of creators and creatives to continue to think and be observant and feel the world and communicate these sights and sounds (and feelings) and continue to seek hope and search for solutions.
Making art shows love and hope.
Hearing this from a politician was glorious and I pass it on to you. Keep striding forward. When the tourists or potholes or natural disasters or manmade conflicts block your way, don’t waste time or energy on stewing and sulking. We must look for ways to help if you can, acknowledge the situation, protect our loved ones, and then move forward on our path to achieve great things to make the world a better place.
We who can, must see the world clearly and love it anyway.
I understand very little, but I do know you are an extraordinary and beautiful person. You will stride on, not without the pain but to many joyful and amazing times-