A Visit. . .

—From EF— We did our trip. It was a revisiting of beloved people from start to finish, and it was the best and smartest gift we could give ourselves. We saw friends we hadn’t hugged since 2019, without any excuse of performance or book sales: it was just to be...

A Hair-Breadth. . .

—From CB— We were on a trip, back in the town where we spent about fifteen years. I was driving a rental car, and Liz was in the passenger seat. We were trying to find our way out of town and on to our next destination. She was following the GPS on the cellphone and...

Tribe. . .

—From CB— Whatever our politics, we can respond to the “other side” of the spectrum in different ways. We can find new, clever phrases to mock or damn them, focusing on the stupidest comments of the stupidest among them. Lots of creative effort went into jokes about...

Big-Assed Leap. . .

—From EF— I was thinking about the upcoming election today, but no. Shit. I don’t want to write about that. I’m writing about something personal, but in my bones I feel it’s related. The two of us are chasing joy, taking a deep breath, putting on...

One Size Fits All. . .

—From CB— On Facebook, a friend who has recently lost a long-term mate posted a lament. She had attended a grief-counseling group, wherein she was criticized for sponsoring a series of memorials for him. “You must give yourself time to cry,” she was told. Responses to...

Birth. . .

—From EF— I celebrate the birth, eighty-one years ago today, of the man with whom my life has been entwined. I celebrate his mother, the woman whose husband said he wanted no children, the woman who was left alone to call a cab to get to the hospital, who labored and...

Cats. . .

—From CB— Our cats love the smell of my feet. Also the smell of my sandals when I’ve been walking along the beachfront, coming home from the coffee shop, or having gone to the supermarket. Our cats love the smell of the old rotten wood I’ve brought in for the...

Storytellers. . .

—From EF— As the years pass, the bones show clearer, the faces more distinct. This year I look at my family and see a tribe of storytellers. All four of us. We have done so many things all at once that I hadn’t seen it that way until now. Our daughter, who has...

Another Goddamn Novel. . .

—From CB— This is absurd, to say the least. Some background is required. There has probably not been a day in my life, since the age of fifteen, that I haven’t felt the urge to write. And I’ve done so: forty produced plays, hundreds of sketches, nine novels, three...

Balance. . .

—From EF— I’m hearing the call of the Equinox and wonder what I’ll do this year to let that amazing balance-point echo in my core. I feel it, but don’t yet know what it is. All my life I have been a night-person, but now I see each dawn, taste it,...