sea salt

When we sat down to read, I had it all planned out. We had an artist-themed selection of new books, as well as continuing our progress in Help, Thanks, Wow . I would stage some lovely reading shots, come away inspired by artists, and hope to instill in Jolene a love of art, either as an observer or a maker. It would be magical, and this post would inspire you, and we would all go about our days. Instead, things did  not  go as planned, and I drew my inspiration not from the artists and writers, but from silly little Harold and his purple crayon. Why? Because his whole story is about making it up as you go along. Improvising. Drawing a hot air balloon to catch you when you start to fall. Starting with a simple, straight path but ending up having adventures instead.  What could possibly go wrong, right? He's got a path! Falling in thin air?! Thank goodness for those wits and that purple crayon. We made it through Harold and the Purple Crayon without i...

Next week I am going to make my own wedding cake. No, I've never made a wedding cake before. Yes, I am already married. On October 2, I'll be celebrating two years of marriage with my wonderful husband. We had the best wedding either of us has ever been to (that's the point, right?), and of course that included a delicious cake. Admittedly, we let our moms pick the flavors, as we let them decide on everything except flowers (I insisted on sunflowers) and music (we picked our own live band). Neither of us wanted a cake that was too fancy or fussy, so we asked the decorator to simply pipe on the design from our invitations, a simple orange outline of leaves on a vine, topped with two birds in wedding clothes. It was perfect. Per the custom, they sent us away with the top of the cake to freeze and eat on our first wedding anniversary. But not per the custom, we couldn't take the cake with us, as we were leaving the next day on a one-way flight to Nashville , wher...

A few days ago Kevin and I sat ourselves down in the spare room and forced ourselves to sift through boxes and bookshelves, crammed with so many things and memories we had been packing, unpacking, and packing again every time we move. While we're pretty good about throwing away things we really don't need (I cringe every time I see a preview for the show "Hoarders," and I've never been able to watch a complete episode), there was a lot of physical and emotional weight to lose. Notebooks from high school, textbooks from college, silly notes and photographs from so many roommates. The Chiquita banana keychain my father had given me got to stay, and so did a Coke bottle from Italy, but a stack of coasters went into the junk pile along with a handful of floppy disks. Kevin had to confront a tall pile of music books, while my biggest challenge was a stack of boxes full of cards. I've always loved saving cards. As a sensitive person, a writer, and a very devot...

(published in MARY: A Journal of New Writing, Spring 2012) "Do we just go in?" Kevin asked. "I think so?" I said, unsure, as we slowly walked up the brick steps. The front door was open behind a glass storm door, and we looked in. A woman standing in the kitchen looked up at me, and I smiled and awkwardly gestured to the door. "Come on in!" she shouted, and when we walked in we saw two women sitting on a couch, another sitting at a table behind a cash box, and stuff everywhere. "Everything's for sale, upstairs, downstairs, and basement. Let us know if you have any questions," the one behind the cash box told us. Kevin and I looked at each other, trying to act like this all felt completely normal and not weird at all, to be walking through a [presumably deceased] person's house, looking at price tags. We were really only there to see if we could find an old chair to add to our mismatched dining set, completely furnished wit...

I have this unrealistic idea about myself, which is that I can probably do anything I set out to do. Of course, our parents and teachers wanted us to believe this, but most of us know it's not really true. Most of us. So one day while watching a reality show about fancy cake bakers, I thought, "How hard can that be? I can do that." I purchased a good cookbook , a few supplies, and set out to make the first fancy cupcake: a simple pink top with a black bow. On Sunday I baked vanilla cupcakes and whipped up a large batch of white chocolate ganache. On Monday I spread the ganache over the tops of the cupcakes. And last night, I applied the icing, using a syrup I made with boiling water and apricot jam. The book strongly favors purchasing ready-made fondant, as the consistency is hard to get just right. And since I'm a beginner, and had made everything else, I was happy to buy a box of 4 packages of fondant, already colored. All I had to do was roll it out, cut, and st...

 As many of you know, I've been lucky enough to have a close relationship with all of my grandparents. As some of you know, we recently lost my grandfather, a man I truly admired and loved. I've published various pieces about him before (see links to the right for "What I Think My Grandmother is Thinking," "Mt. Auburn," and "The Man I Know"), but this weekend I was honored to write a new piece, one to deliver at his memorial service. Below is the eulogy I read at the service. I was limited to 3 minutes, but those of you who knew Grampy know that I could have spoken for days. I may later post the entire list of 101 Life Lessons mentioned in my eulogy, and I may later be able to compose a new piece to reflect on this loss. For now, my tired and grieving heart just wants to rest. Enjoy remembering this wonderful life, and feel free to share your own memories. You are also welcome to read his obituary , an impressive testament to a life well li...

I walked into our bedroom and the bags were packed. Suitcases bulging with t-shirts and socks covered the bed, and trash bags filled with old clothes lined the wall, waiting for their trip to Goodwill. I burst into tears. Heavy sobs and an intense panic took over my body: what will I do now? My husband is not leaving me. In fact, I knew that today, while I was at work, he was at home packing, preparing for our trip tomorrow from Nashville to Boston. His new job starts on Monday, and so he is going first, to settle back in, to find us an apartment, to prepare for my arrival a month later. We joked about how the time would fly, how we would Skype everyday as we did during our engagement, half of which we spent in different states. I know I will be fine, and I know this is the most practical way to move, and I know that in one month, when we are reunited, it will seem that no time has passed at all. But that didn't make the sight of packed suitcases any easier to bear. I t...

This week I had the chance to work on something truly meaningful. One of my coworkers asked me to re-write the copy for a brochure, advertising an annual 5K run . The run is in honor of her brother, who died seven years ago at the age of fourteen, dropping from a sudden heart attack after cross country practice. This assignment comes just four months after the news of Alison , who also died far too young. I worked on the brochure, filled with pictures of a smiling kid always surrounded by friends and family. His life obviously meant a lot to those around him, and it was lost in an instant on an otherwise normal afternoon. The images and writing about my coworker's brother were touching, but sobering. Along with the work of coming up with a new name and new copy for the run was the work of not trying to think of my life without one of my sisters, and trying to think about if the way I've spent my 28 years so far would be considered meaningful if I died tomorrow. As I worked...

Yesterday I had lunch with my best friend in Nashville. We were at a tiny burger joint, and at 12:30pm on a Tuesday, it was filled with men. We managed to squeeze ourselves into a spot at the greasy counter, facing the grills and sharing elbow space with men all around. "I quit smoking," she said to me. I smiled, but didn't see the big deal, as she only smoked a few cigarettes a day to deal with the stress of her new business. "And I stopped eating white bread and sugar." "That's ... a lot to quit at once!" I said, wondering why she would bring up a new diet while we were eating burgers and fries. She smiled and looked directly at me.  "I'm having a baby." ______________ On Saturday my husband and I participated in A Novel Idea - Jumpstart , a one-day workshop for adults who want to write a novel. A staunch creative nonfiction writer, I was nervous, but ready for a new challenge: fiction. The untrue. The invented. The haven ...

(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...

On May 22, I felt an overwhelming sense of pity. Sympathy, maybe. As everyone knows, a fringe sect (some might say cult) of Christians believed the world would end on May 21. And they didn't keep it to themselves. They created websites, wrote articles, made t-shirts and paraded through the streets of major cities in buses with fear-mongering verses about hell and damnation. They were passionate, excited and yes, over-the-top. But they really believed the world would end, and for them, assured they would go to heaven, it would be the best day of their lives, the last day they had to live on earth (which for many people, for many reasons, is indeed a happy thought). But May 21 came and went. The Internet quickly became clogged with jokes, pictures of "rapture pranks" and articles proclaiming the absurdity of how fervently these people believed in something that never happened at all. I admit, I laughed at a few, and we jokingly texted our pastor to see if he was still ar...

In five months, we've made some good friends who have helped us out with everything from airport pick ups to recommending a good car mechanic.  We've appreciated these people all along the way, but didn't realize how much we needed them until this week - house week. It's been a little over 1 week since we moved into the new house, and in that week we added to this extremely important group of people...people to call in a crisis.* I. Moving In the city, moving is like going out to the movies - you know who to call, you know who will most likely be interested, and you know who has their own car.  Kevin and I each had our Boston regulars, people we always called to help us move apartments (usually in and out of 3rd floor walk-ups), for the small price of pizza after the move.  We had the friend with the truck, the friend who could lift a dresser by himself, the friend who was great at organizing boxes in the back of a car.  When we moved into our apartment in Nas...

Pellegrino was not my grandfather.  He was not even related to me.  He was an old man with broken English who smoked on the porch and wore a red knit cardigan from September - May.   Every morning I came down from my third floor apartment, left the house and said, "Buongiorno!" and he would check his watch and say, "You late!  You sleep all a-day!"  Every evening I'd come home and say, "Buona sera!" and he'd say, "You late!  You been sleeping all a-day!"  Some days I thought he might really be crazy; other days I thought he was just being silly; most days I thought he was a combination of both, so like my grandfather in the years before he died. Today I found out that Pellegrino died in January.  He was in his 80s, he had bladder cancer, and he had been living with his daughter since last year.  I moved out of the apartment in 2009, and missed him when I came down from my new third floor apartment every day to an empty porch, wishing ...

On Sunday our pastor read from 2 Samuel, in which Araunah says to God, "I would not make an offering that cost me nothing."  The story shed light on the true meaning of any kind of gift - someone gives up something for the sake of another.  This is why the idea of re-gifting has such shameful connotations in our society.  It's not that you didn't appreciate what was given to you, but that you've sacrificed nothing in order to give a gift.  It's easy, convenient, and superficial - if anyone can do it for free, it means very little. My husband loves Henry David Thoreau, and we have adopted one of his adages as a guiding principle: "The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it."  The most important and valuable choices can cost a great deal of life, and the trick is knowing which ones are worth it. A cost I willingly absorb is the cost of keeping in touch - really keeping in touch - with extended family and far-away friends.  I a...