(it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then; Vondelpark, 09 June 2021) — *(it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then*; Vondelpark, 09 June 2021)

10 June 2021 Dear Nic— Bright weather here! and naturally I think of you. (Don’t worry: rain’s bound to fall again.) In the sunny mean-between-time: Don’t forget to write. XO

(Over and Over; Amsterdam, 18 May 2021) — *(Over and Over*; Amsterdam, 18 May 2021)

18 May 2021 Dear Jen— The weather forecast is a solid block of rain, but every day the sun adds some line breaks, so the reading’s less dire than it appears. I saw these reds today and thought of you and yours but also was moving fast and, as often the case, over-focused on Other Details (though wow! that green! and such ruffles!). Please look for me at Hanif’s reading. I’ll be there, dim and in my dreams. XO

(Spring in the Time of Covid: Year Twee; Amsterdam, 31 March 2021) — (*Spring in the Time of Covid: Year Twee*; Amsterdam, 31 March 2021)

24 April 2021 Judith dear— How are you over there? Here it’s same-same but more so. Covid cases above 9-thou per day, and the government says lifting the curfew and re-opening cafes for outdoor seating are “risky but responsible” measures. Not that the curfew has meant much, I suppose—before the dawn sanitation squad arrives, trash blooms in Vondelpark like moonflowers. Yesterday I ran through the park with Whitney Houston in the earbuds, “And when the night falls, loneliness calls.” In my skull, Auden’s reply: “We must love one another or die.” Missing you every day— XO

[Fragile Future (phosphor bronze, dandelion seeds, LEDs): Studio Drift, Stedelijk Museum; 2018] — [*Fragile Future* (phosphor bronze, dandelion seeds, LEDs): Studio Drift, Stedelijk Museum; 2018]

16 March 2021 Dear Steph— Today a Dickinson poem crossed my path, one I can’t recall having read before, and I thought of you:

Had I not seen the Sun / I could have borne the shade / But Light a newer Wilderness / My Wilderness has made—

Yours in strength and tenderness—XO

(‘I am carried in my shadow like a violin in a black case’; Museumplein; 25 Jan 2021) — (‘*I am carried in my shadow like a violin in a black case*’; Museumplein; 25 Jan 2021)

11 February 2021 Dear Judith, Here’s the story of the Museumplein riots as told by police horses. As I’m not fluent in hooves, I’m still trying to figure out what it says, what it all means beyond humans’ frustration with what can’t be controlled. Next year, I hope the cards, the clouds, the spells, the numbers, the bones—all the signs—align for us to celebrate your birthday month together. XO

(Thin Ice; Oud-Zuid, January 2021) — *(Thin Ice*; Oud-Zuid, January 2021)

12 January 2021 Dear A.M., I don’t know how many moody-canal photos a person needs, but here’s one more. Like poems, they keep coming—and also like poems, the most recent always tries to convince me it’s the last. How are you? Here, lockdown is wearing thin, and anxieties are thick. I’m knotting more wool than words this winter, which maybe is merely a different sort of figuring, maybe? One morning in Seattle, near Green Lake, I backed my tin-can hatchback out of a driveway just as a neighbor backed out of hers, and our cars’ bumpers lived up to their names, touching—so gently!—like shoulders. As though we’d unknowingly entered a film in slow motion. These past few weeks, every day seems a version of that fender-bender—familiar and jarringly unknown all at once, and so much I’m missing even as I try—carefully!—to take it all in. A few folks recently have asked how the U.S. is regarded from afar, and my answer up to now has been “squirrel circus”—but no more. Last week’s fundamentalist rhetoric and violence are no joke. Hugs to you and your beauties. XO P.S. Have you read Greetings From Nashville? P.P.S. Keep the faith—Love Wins.

(No light without dark; Amsterdam, 2020) — (*No light without dark;* Amsterdam, 2020)

21 December 2020 Dear Becka— Elegy Begun in July traveled with me this week, and even though I didn’t go further than the market or post office, it was great company, a light for dark days, and forward-looking even in its glancing back, the way night speaks to day speaks to night, etc., etc., for as long as any of us lifers can say, serving our sentences. Thank you, thank you for writing it. The year is dying—Happy Solstice!—and to it and the calendar ahead, the only words that rise to mind are a few stolen from my father the year he left: Goodbye, I love you, I love everybody, goodbye! Looking forward to talking in 2021—XO

(This Old World Must Still Be Turning Round; Vondelpark, Amsterdam; 16:37, 6 December 2020) — *(This Old World Must Still Be Turning Round*; Vondelpark, Amsterdam; 16:37, 6 December 2020)

7 December 2020 Dear Liz— Remember that time you visited Portland, we tooled around in my crap maroon station wagon which, years later, would strand me in Cougar, Washington, and I don’t know where we’d been or where we were going, but I-5 went from slow to parking lot just as my then-only child decided he’d had enough of the limited view from his rear-facing carseat and launched a robust protest, and, although my singing is something best left in the shower, mothering options from the driver’s seat were limited, so I pretended you couldn’t actually hear me and tried a lullaby, and voila! he quieted, traffic picked back up, and when we got home, we put him to bed, opened a bottle of Valpolicella, and while making us linguine alle vongole, you razzed me hard about the Worcestershire in my faux-fajitas the night before, though not (and never in all these years) my singing? I do. Often and with love. Happy Birthday Week. P.S. That kid? He and his beautiful beloved married last weekend. Oh, my heart.

(Year of the Pod; Amsterdam, 2020) — *(Year of the Pod*; Amsterdam, 2020)

27 November 2020

Dear Michele,

Thanks for the shout. The only way I know to write is slowly—which feels lonely, if I let it, when the world seems bent on speed. Here’s a photo from spring, a season both past and to come from late November’s vantage, yet never worried with its pace. Hope to see you before many more seasons roll by—XO

P.S. Did you read Teju Cole’s Blind Spot?

P.P.S. How about Victoria Chang’s Obit?

(Now; Amsterdam, November 2020) — *(Now*; Amsterdam, November 2020)

11 November 2020

Dear Katherine,

The election has come and, mostly, sort of, gone, and while it delivered a modicum of hope, relief hasn’t arrived, not really. With covid raging, days feel undifferentiated, like a paper-doll chain 9-months long. Maybe Groundhog Day is actually a documentary. (Considering the Arctic ice-melt rate, maybe The Road Warrior is, too, oof.) Time feels stuck.

Simultaneously, though, and in reality, time continues to mind its business, which is moving. If only it would move me as it passes—but that’s not its job, that’s up to me. The Amsterdam sky this morning is flat gray, a paint swatch for a color some marketing person might dub Snowshoe Hare (honestly, it’s closer to Dirty Sink—illustrating why I failed at advertorial). I’m here at my desk—in a half hour I hope to be running, slowly, here and there in the park, while you sleep under the same-same-but-different sky. XO

(Fake it till you make it; Amsterdam; October 2020) — *(Fake it till you make it;* Amsterdam; October 2020)

18 October 2020

Dear Kristy,

I imagine by now your second-round of porch fledglings have, well, fully fledged. Are the chickens still laying? Any frost on the squash? Here it’s not quite cold enough for hot toddies, but soon. My friend Becka’s in Minnesota this fall—she sent leaf-peeper pics!—in some parallel universe, you’re there, too, and me, Bulleit rye Manhattans all around.

Give the fiddle my love. Mike, too.

(East Meets West in the North’s South; Amsterdam, July 2020) — *(East Meets West in the North’s South*; Amsterdam, July 2020)

29 September 2020

Dear Amsterdammers,

I’ve seen your little black boots, leather jackets, trench coats, tiny wire-rim specs…fashion-wise, you’re a city of extras in the Marvel universe. As the nation creeps closer to 5,000 new cases of covid every day, how about you go full superhero? Please, for the love of all cheese that’s holey: Wear the mask.

(Beach, Baby; Amsterdam; 2020) — (*Beach, Baby*; Amsterdam; 2020)

14 September 2020

Dear Liz,

Three years to the day—I’ve officially lived in the Netherlands longer than Emerald Isle, which seems a kind of quantum magic: hours spent riding shotgun = density of neutron stars. Oregon is on fire, Washington is on fire, California is on fire—my mind’s there, with people I love, and places so changed they may as well be gone, while my body moves through Amsterdam’s damp incongruities. Then suddenly I’m also with you in the rolling office on NC 24. Top down, Michael Hutchence shouting through the wind. Hands surfing the air like wings. Sky blue with promises we pretended it might keep.

(Beckett in the Skatepark; Amsterdam, September 2, 2020) — (*Beckett in the Skatepark;* Amsterdam, September 2, 2020)

9 September 2020

Concept of Movement Between Points in Time

Cincinnati kids waiting for pay phones Lay’s

potato chips 7-Eleven all those cigarettes September

bees moving very very fast haunted by snow

(‘I’m not interested in heaven unless my anger gets to go there, too’; August 2020) — *(‘I’m not interested in heaven unless my anger gets to go there, too’*; August 2020)

Note to Self:

“Part of what you have to figure out in this life is, Who would I be if I hadn’t been frightened?”

—Patricia Lockwood, Priestdaddy

(When We Knew Each Other When; August 2020) — *(When We Knew Each Other When;* August 2020)

14 August 2020

Dear Me To Be,

If the heatwave ever breaks, no more whingeing about Amsterdam’s lack of summer.

Seriously.

Melting like Elphaba—

Me Before You

(Photos: Ms Dickinson in Amsterdam; 2020)

10 July 2020

Dear Judith,

I’ve decided: both forearms.

The left: —If your Nerve deny you—

The right: —Go above your Nerve—

If my bones were less wren, I’d add an old textbook illustration of a brain in a bell jar on the left, a fine-line thundercloud on the right.

Let me know what you think. Missing you and all the ways you illustrate this life—

(Summer Tour 2020; Museumplein, Amsterdam; 25 June 2020) — *(Summer Tour 2020*; Museumplein, Amsterdam; 25 June 2020)

26 June 2020

-There are so many roots to the tree of anger / that sometimes the branches shatter / before they bear, wrote Audre Lorde nearly 50 years ago.

Dear dears,

Stay grounded, stay loud. And please stay safe out there.

(Ready For My Close Up, Mr. DeMille; Great Gray Owl Nest; June 2020) — *(Ready For My Close Up, Mr. DeMille*; Great Gray Owl Nest; June 2020)

19 June 2020

Dear Alexis,

Thanks for the great conversation. Here’s the full story:

Once upon a time in Ho Chi Minh City, Fanny’s Ice Cream hosted Friday-night buffets. For a single price, one could order as much cold sugared lactose as their endocrine system could handle, plus toppings. Plus PLUS, there was a playground for kids—who, if under 4-foot-tall, got in free of charge. Needless to say, we were regulars, as were many families from the neighborhood.

One evening, after sitting long enough to down a few (gratis!) scoops, Littlest Housemate beelined for the play structure. I followed, and soon a woman I’d met once before—white, from Utah—was at my elbow. -She’s so cute, she said, nodding at L.H.

-I think so, too, I said, and smiled. Then—

-What is she? she asked.

What is she? What? Is? She? I…uh…

I was so white, I’d never imagined such a question. I was so white, I felt obligated to answer. I had no ready comeback. My eyebrows shot up, my mouth hung open as I scrambled to make sense of the situation. I have a vague memory of saying, -A…girl? but cannot swear I actually tried that. I do remember she didn’t like my hesitation and continued to press. I do remember she said -I didn’t mean it like that. I meant, where is she from? And with anger, sadness, and shame, I do remember caving to conditioning, giving her a little of what she wanted just to make her go away.

Years later I know it’s easy to be ashamed or angry at/with/for Other People (and myself), but even the hottest emotions go nowhere on their own. Change is the thing that’s hardest not only to make but also to hold onto. Not long ago, L.H. had a unit in school on Growth and the Human Body. Downloading over snack one afternoon, she said, “I am I who is becoming I who is not I.” Maybe that’s the most we can hope for ourselves.

10 June 2020

Dear Lola,

Thank you for the link. And the pull quote:

Esquire: Is there any white man who can…
James Baldwin: White, by the way, is not a color—it's an attitude. You're as white as you think you are. It's your choice.
Then black is a state of mind, too?
No, black is a condition.
Who among the white community can talk to the black community and be accepted?
Anybody, who doesn't think of himself as white.

Here in the land where the Prime Minister finally admitted Zwarte Piet may be a slightly racist tradition, I am beaming you Good Thoughts and Hope.

29 May 2020

Dear Jonathan,

Last image online before falling asleep: protests in Hong Kong. First news this morning, top right headline, NYTimes International Edition: China takes the fate of Hong Kong in its hands. To the left, a photo from Italy, as though I weren’t already thinking of you and soup dumplings and paper airplanes and glass-bottomed gondolas. Then, in the farthest lefthand column, Twitter’s kerfuffle with 45. I want to say that, in a just world, community outrage following yet another death in police custody (page 6) should take precedence over anybody’s social media feud, but in a just world George Floyd would still be alive. These days, the world seems too heavy for even the Tian Tan Buddha to lift.

On page 4, though, below the fold, deep in a story about the timeline of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S., a glimmer of hope. Dr. Trevor Bedford, a geneticist at the University of Washington, acknowledges a colleague’s work and says, —I believe I was wrong in the original assessment of the WA1 introduction.

—I was wrong. There, in print, a human being open to admitting he doesn’t know everything, willing to consider a different perspective. Saying out loud that he didn’t have the answer. Not lashing out, not giving up. Remarkable, really. Like some new Marvel superhero demonstrating what to do when we feel like we don’t know what to do. Which is all the time for me lately. And if that’s the best news today has to offer, I’ll take it.

(Lotus Deva; Lantau Island, Hong Kong; November 2014)

(The thorns—what use are they?; Amsterdam; 2020) — (*The thorns—what use are they?;* Amsterdam; 2020)

Dear Annette/Nanook,

Is your garden popping? How tall are the sunflowers? Here the wisteria refuses to contain itself, and even cultivated roses seem wild. No hydrangeas yet, but soon.

The knee’s healed enough to allow some shuffling outdoors. I’m down to one crutch, though am old enough? too old? to believe I’ll identify (much less divest of) all figurative props. The government asks folks to mask up on trains and trams—otherwise, social distancing is all but forgotten. I’ve not yet poked anyone passing too close with my cane, but the thought’s sprung to mind. As has the word “crotchety”—too soon! Too soon!

I think I need a morning on the lake and an afternoon making calzone and an evening with music and friends, none of which will happen soon. I’ll settle for advice re. choosing a suitable shade of red lipstick. Say hi to Bill and the dogs and the flowers. WBS.

11 May 2020

Dear Nic,

Thanks for the note. I find writing begets writing, momentum fuels itself, so the best cure is the hardest, i.e., sitting still, then forcing your fingers to push the keys or animate the pen.

Somebody once told me I’d have to write through the shit to get to the good stuff, but nobody warned I might arrive at a place where I no longer trusted the difference. So, don’t judge as you go. (Also, please, fer the love of dog, remind me I said this.)

Deadlines help, but not loneliness. Coffee and whiskey to a point, after which anxiety initiates its whispering campaign. Walks. Showers (indoors and out). Books. The wise dead. Ms. Dickinson: If your Nerve, deny you— Go above your Nerve— And so:

Her name was Ida. She died in Denver, Colorado, and the closest we came to meeting was her unmarked grave. Which seems the end of the story, except she’s with me, everywhere I go.

Write soon. XO

(From Do Fish Sleep?; Littlest Housemate, April 2020) — (From *Do Fish Sleep?*; Littlest Housemate, April 2020)

30 April 2020

Dear Sue,

Yesterday Littlest Housemate read my fortune, and the cards told her my luck would be Good this week IF I “write to someone.”

I don’t know if it’s the bum knee or the persistent, intrusive thought that we’re trapped in a Cormac McCarthy novel, but I’m dreaming more than usual. Last night you found me on Nguyễn Văn Hưởng, threw me a helmet, and drove us to Ploughman’s Garden for curry and coffee under Seiko’s water apple tree. I woke before the restaurant closed, the motorbike sold, Seiko moved to Tokyo—or was it Berlin?—and the current swept me west, you east—

Tonight, let’s meet at Mr. Singh’s? I know, I know, the dogs never stop, and the carwash attracts nhiều mosquitos—but I bet you miss the lassis as much as I do.

22 April 2020

Dear Lateral Collateral Ligament,

If you think we’re done with jungle gyms, you’re sorely mistaken.

Dear Wlf,

Thank you for the bicycle ambulance. I couldn’t have a better right-hand/left-knee man.

Dear Carter,

Yes, yes, please, and a side of fries.

[Littlest Housemate (pitching in with dinner dishes):

—You have all the boring jobs.

Me (from the couch):

—Not anymore.]

(Woman and Bird /Femme et oiseau, Joan Miró, 1969; Barcelona, 2019) — (*Woman and Bird /Femme et oiseau*, Joan Miró, 1969; Barcelona, 2019)

13 April 2020

Dear Judith,

Spring Equinox 2019, jotted in a notebook —Monster, etymology: monstrare—to show or demonstrate—

An incomplete history, gloriously lacking connotation. Maybe the trick is knowing which monsters to fight, which to hug tight. Or the knowledge that one can turn into another.

There’s a voice in my head that says —Never Enough. The more I try to shut it down, the louder it becomes. So instead, I’ll try letting go. Hope it crosses the ocean like a barn swallow from my apartment to yours—swoops close to signal how many times a day I think (and fail to say) of you.

8 April 2020

Dear Liz,

This morning, four Social Distance Units away, I truly believed with no small degree of glee that a pint-sized Galileo had sidewalk-chalked the lunar phases. I’m, like, 99-percent sure tonight’s moon will be full, though manageable by Daily News standards as it’s Wednesday, not payday Friday. Regardless, stay safe on your way from there to there. Over here, I’ll keep the light on. Send word when you arrive.

7 April 2020

Dear Hugh and Ros,

Two years and a day ago we hiked through fire-damaged woods and kangaroo-trodden bush to a beach lined with etched rocks, illuminated books penned by wind and water. In a call last week, another dear friend mentioned Richard Hugo’s letters, and I’m re-reading—funny how I remembered the fishing and glittering loneliness yet forgot (or likely hadn’t even previously recognized) the White Male-centricity.

And yet I still find lines worth underlining. In a letter-poem to Bill Matthews, Hugo says, You know the mind, how it comes on the scene again / and makes tiny histories of things. And the imagination / how it wants everything back one more time…

Littlest Housemate mentioned (again!) Monday how much she misses your scrambled eggs, Ros. Then launched into a memory of doing sleight-of-hand for you. How she told you to be mean to the coin, to make it cry, and you did, and—ta da!—legal tender tears and laughter, and you said -Do it again! Which she did, immediately giving up the trick but, with luck, saving the story for a long, long time to come.

3 April 2020

Dear Kim,

Yesterday I left the house for the first time all week, embarking on a manufactured errand. An annual bout of allergic bronchitis—so poorly timed this year—is making forays tough: Chill air triggers the cough, and the Dutch are reporting people who violate Social Distancing guidelines. I could be fined for exhibiting symptoms. But Friday’s forecast called for partly sunny skies, so off I walked, hatless, scarfless, gloveless. Is there anything more attractive than Hope to the Small Laughing Gods? Halfway through, a north wind summoned serious clouds, and fat, cold rain dumped.

When, dripping, I tried to shake off, a tiny bit of deep green moss fell from my hair. Once on a dock in Oregon, a boy—you maybe met him once—said I look when wet like a drowned rat, but I finally think he was wrong. Now I see I’m more sloth. Slow. Liable to over-focus on small distractions, to fumble other time-space specifics, like exact dates, for which I hope you will continue to forgive me. Happy Birthday Week, Kim dear. And thank you for not letting go, no matter where the wind blows us.

(When Church Bells Still Rang; Bergamo, Italy; June 25, 2017) — (*When Church Bells Still Rang;* Bergamo, Italy; June 25, 2017)

30 March 2020

[heart full, pen empty]

27 March 2020

Dear JM,

For months we’ve been trapped under winter’s musty wool, but the moment the government announced Sheltering In Place, the sky lifted its blanket and giggled. In an attempt to stave off one kind of blue and seize another, we’re opening windows, despite chilly temps. After dinner last night I was drawing a pigeon (don’t ask), and suddenly in wafts The Police—Don’t Stand So Close To Me—accompanied by a ukulele. Follow-up: So Lonely. Then the evening returned to its regularly scheduled silence. People, man—aren’t they the BEST? when, that is, they/we/me aren’t busy being the worst. Please send the chords to Ohio? I’m homesick for the first time in years and, between home-school duties, have a little time on my (just washed) hands.

(Yes: Postcard: Singapore; 2015; used with model’s permission) — *(Yes:* Postcard: Singapore; 2015; used with model’s permission)

23 March 2020

Littlest Housemate (looking at homework): What’s the difference between a yak and a boat?

Me: Well, a yak is an animal, and a boat is not.

LH: A yak is an animal?

Me. It is.

LH: I thought it was a canoe.

Me:

LH:

Me: (braincloud shifts slightly) How about you spell it?

LH: Y, A, C, H…

22 March 2020

Dear Laura,

Thank you for the photo of nesting herons. I would hike with you, vicariously or no, any time, any place. Do you remember our grandmother’s feathered hat?

Dear Becka,

My arms can carry only so many books. One I left behind: You gave it to me, every page with wings. Please send words to navigate these clipped days.

Dear Liz,

I can see you in this dress. Or is that me?

Dear John,

I found my copy of Specimen Days. Lost count of the number of times I’ve read “In the Machine” and still Cunningham’s imagery astonishes. This time I followed the clothes, though without a pen, so here’s an image I can’t easily re-find, floating paraphrased in mind: clouds—or maybe birds?—like dreams the hats were having.

The police in…Rotterdam, maybe? arrested a man for Coughing With Intent to Harm. As far as I know it’s still legal to listen to The Decemberists and sing to egrets breakfasting in the pond.

15 March 2020

Dear Wlf,

A photo from February, before we would have believed we’d spend most of March at home. Like how when you said hello in the rain all those years ago—what we don’t know till we know it.

Thanks for hitting three grocery stores with me today. In the campaign against viral overlords, I feel mighty grateful to socially isolate with you.

brdsffthrlv—

(Black Cloud-Carlos Amorales; Stedelijk Museum, 2020) — (*Black Cloud*-Carlos Amorales; Stedelijk Museum, 2020)

P.S.

Littlest Housemate (yesterday): Franny?

Me: Yes, dear?

LH: How long was the demonic plague?

14 March 2020

Dear Laura dear,

Even if you were able to fly to me, the city is slowly closing.

Carlos Amorales’ Black Cloud at the Stedelijk—shuttered now till at least 31 March—seems like a metaphor for 2020, which seems itself already a decade long. In a 2012 photo essay of the piece, Colossal editors failed to catch a typo, now turned portent:

Black Cloud is an installation by Mexican artist Carlos Amorales involving tens of thousands of black paper months affixed to the walls of large interior spaces.

Here’s the exhibit from the inside in January, a paper month still gray. Who would’ve guessed we’d feel nostalgic for gray? Winging love across continents and seas—

Dear Kids,

Be safe out there.

(Children’s Library, Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam; 2020)

6 March 2020

Dear Future Me,

At the grocery—again—having just dropped The Littlest Housemate at school. Rain, wind from the north—black raincoat fully zipped over waterproof trousers, wet boots leaving tracks across the floor. 8:35am. The aisles are empty but for me, the street-gang pigeons in the entryway, and a few employees stocking shelves. I pause in the refrigerated aisle, about to grab a half-liter of milk, when a guy rounds the corner, walks up to me, says something in Dutch.

I turn—he’s 25, maybe? bushy hair, a little disheveled, looks like he’s on his way to a construction job after a rough night. I say —Oh, sorry, I speak English— He laughs, then says with an accent suggesting neither Dutch nor English is his first language —Not Dutch? Me, neither!

—English! he says. English! Yeah! Hey, you wanna fuck right now?

Suddenly I realize he’s high, like so high maybe the dairy section is a full-on, laser-lit rave and I’m a bikini-clad blue giraffe. And because my brain loses every game of tag with social anxiety, I say, swear to dog, I say —No, thank you. I have to make dinner for my friends. And as though this response makes PERFECT sense, he grins, nods —Oh! Ok. See ya! waving as he disappears down the juice aisle.

Next time someone says —Oh, Amsterdam! Don’t you just love it? please tell this story. Yours, as ever, lost in translation,

(Photo: Portland, Oregon, 2020; Please Participate -Jeppe Hein, 2015) — (Photo: Portland, Oregon, 2020; *Please Participate* -Jeppe Hein, 2015)

4 March 2020

Dear Jen,

After the funeral I couldn’t stop thinking of the pastor saying of the lover-turned-caretaker —And she never complained.

To which I wanted to shout —Why should she not? The last year was unspeakably hard, she deserves an audience—every syllable counted as blessing.

If silence and a smile are a woman’s ticket to heaven, I best hope there’s plenty of bourbon in hell.

How many meantimes have we known each other now? Today I am tired of living in Interesting Times. Between Amsterdam and Brussels, there’s a town called Lint. Let’s find a pocket of time, meet there. I’ll buy the fries.

17 February 2020

Dear Liz,

This weekend I heard of an ancient Greek poet from Sicily whose surviving work is all about Mediterranean cuisine. Fragments offer recommendations re. appetizers and wine, but the bulk of his concern apparently was fish (recommended preparation of tuna from Byzantium: slice, sprinkle with salt, brush with oil, bake simply, and eat while hot). An impossible number of years since I could ring you after work, invite myself to dinner—yet even still, tell me what we ate and I’ll tell you what we talked about. Now, nearly every weekday morning, walking the housemate to school, I pass Sophia in the window of di Bruno Cucina and think of you. That night I needed help dressing a mess of fresh bass and red drum, you in red dress and pumps, stopping on your way to a party. How the scales flew. Landed like sequins in our hair.

14 February 2020

Dear Mom and Poppie,

I’m so glad you ordered the lobster.

Love,

Your Valentine’s Baby

(Photo: Amsterdam; January 2020)

10 February 2020

Dear Becka,

On cold, windy days, pigeons shelter in the lobby of of the Museumplein Albert Heijn grocery, like wayward characters from a Mo Willems’ book. Last week, there they were, standing just inside the automatic doors, and I thought of you and Sadie and the nesting drama in your backyard, so I knelt to get a photo, but an elderly woman in a wool coat and dress shoes, pulling one of those collapsible grocery carts, stepped right behind me and audibly tutted until I stood and reflexively apologized. She smiled without showing teeth, shaking her head, and continued to the exit. There’d been plenty of room for her to pass on either side. But maybe moving through the world isn’t always enough. Maybe sometimes we all need proof we are here and visible.

(Photo: Paris; February 2020)

6 February 2020

Dear Army of Every Woman Ever Have I Loved,

I wish we had a uniform, and I wish it were this dress.

3 February 2020

Dear Jonathan,

Here is a little known fact about Amsterdam: ATM’s are few and far between. People keep blowing them up, shattering neighbors’ windows and sleep, hoping the night will briefly rain money. Apparently hand grenades are a popular method for attempting unauthorized withdrawals. Also dynamite. As often as not, I’ve heard, the take is destroyed in the process. Most banks have removed cashpoints in our neighborhood. I haven’t woken to an explosion in months, only the midnight pacing of our upstairs’ neighbor.

The forecast calls for rain, followed by rain, but the sun is out—oops, now it’s hailing. I spent hours this morning trying to crop this photo block. Here’s hoping January was shorter for you than it was for me.

(Photo: Amsterdam; February 2020)

As good a place to start as any, I suppose.