Stop this train – I wanna get off and go home again

In which I get perhaps a bit too personal...

Sunrise over Little Mountain (and the previous owner’s monster satellite dish -_-) from my kitchen window

I remember my parents telling me, when I was a kid (and probably complaining about how slowly the school year was passing, or something), that the years fly by faster and faster as you get older. I didn’t believe them then, but I do now.

I do not approve. How are the weeks allowed to crawl along so painfully but the months and years slip through my fingers like egg whites? Who made these rules? I need to speak with the person in charge.

If possible, this month has been even more of a rollercoaster/speedway than October, and yet the weeks were torturous. Trigger warning: mention of pregnancy complications and potential loss ahead.

November began with what I was certain was a miscarriage, which turned out (after five hours in the ER during a pandemic) to be something called a subchorionic hemorrhage (when I tell you that lying on a hospital bed and watching my baby’s heart beat on a sonogram while I could feel blood gushing out of my body was a headfuck…well), which we were then told might or might not cause a real miscarriage (exaggerated shrug). So the next three weeks were spent alternating between catatonic depression/anxiety and broken-brain numbness from all the aforementioned emotional strain. And then we had our follow-up appointment and, lo and behold, the bleed had shrunk and the little nugget was healthy and everything felt possible again.

And so the month has ended with hope, and also with a new job, because the universe loves to send opportunities my way when I’m least equipped to attend to them – but no matter. I’ll take a good opportunity whenever I can.

But jesus, friends…hope and devastation taking turns walloping my heart for a full month like kids jumping on a hotel bed…it took it out of me. I don’t have much wisdom to share this month, nor do I have much writing – just one little essay, of which I’m very proud, that took an entire year to gestate and be born onto the digital page.

Here’s hoping this little nugget doesn’t take quite so long to bake up right.

Banana crumb muffins – because even a famous banana bread baker needs something a little lighter sometimes

Recent Writing

I pitched The Rumpus (one of my absolute favorite literary magazines) back in October 2020 with an idea for a piece about my literary tattoo and the poem that inspired it, and I was thrilled when the editor agreed to read a draft. Between the holidays and various delays on both ends, the essay wasn’t finalized until June, at which point it was bumped down the editorial calendar a few times, finally landing on November 3rd – it came right on time, in the end, to fill in this section of my newsletter. You can read it here.

Recent Reading

Uhhhhhh I’m still reading Nightbitch and I finished We Keep the Dead Close (meh) and Free Food for Millionaires… Unfortunately I haven’t had the head space or time to read anything else yet, although the minute I finish Nightbitch (still awesome and so weird, btw) I’ll be jumping onto a friend’s novel, and I’m very excited about that!

A random joy

So this isn’t really random (hmmm I keep having to state that caveat…but oh well), but it is an EXTREME joy so I’m gonna use it anyway. My husband took off a couple of days around Veteran’s Day so we (it was supposed to be ‘we,’ before I was put on pelvic rest and barred from doing anything fun) could replace our heinous, oversized bathroom vanity and actually have enough space to sit by the bath while a child is in it. He wound up meeting with unforeseen challenge after unforeseen challenge – though is it really unforeseen if the previous owners of your home did everything wrong? – and had to make many left turns and many trips to many hardware stores, but he did it! We also painted, put up new cabinets, and installed baseboards where the ugly brown tile had once climbed the walls (I was allowed to help with the paint and baseboards). Et voilá! She is so beautiful and functional, I could cry (and maybe I have, just a little), and I am SO proud of my husband for learning how to plumb a new vanity all by himself/with YouTube’s assistance!

I am honestly floored by how much of a difference a new vanity and some paint have made – what an absolute dream makeover this is!

PS If you’re wondering about the subject line of this newsletter, it’s from this song, which makes me cry every time I hear it (so of course I often play it multiple times in a row).