sea salt

(Aleksander Hemon. "The Aquarium: a child's isolating illness." The New Yorker , June 13, 2011.) After the earthquake and tsunami in Japan hit, I plunged into news overload. For days I read articles, watched videos and scanned pictures - the same ones over and over. The horror of it was not simply gripping ... it was paralyzing. I didn't know how to balance the seemingly trivial existence of my every day with the overwhelming tragedy of this disaster. The same thing happened when I recently lost an old friend. Thanks to the Internet, I could read and re-read blog entries about her progress, read and re-read her online obituary, read and re-read news articles from the DC area to report that "the pedestrian" had succumbed to her injuries. My access to and fascination with the nonstop images, reporting and details of tragedy worried me. My id told me to learn more, read more, see more (after all, I'm a curious person - if there's something to l...

This morning I started my day like any other. I woke up at 5:30, got dressed, went for a walk and called my sister. But instead of finishing off the routine with yoga before leaving for work, I called a 6th grade classroom in Florida for a Q&A session. My role in this session? The author. Did you always know you wanted to be a writer? Who is your favorite author? Are you going to write another book? * Six years ago I was in the Harvard COOP bookstore with my sister. I had just begun my MFA program, and was already dreaming about seeing my name on the cover of a book. We walked through the aisles and scanned the walls of must-reads before circling a round table with a sign that read "Summer Reading." It was the collection of books on required reading lists, the lists compiled by teachers, administrators, and school board members. These were the books that educators wanted their students to read, some because they are fixtures in the literary canon, and oth...