What Are You Reading (offline, that is)?

Samantha Shorey is an essay writer and film photo taker from Portland, Oregon. She recently moved to a small New England town to get her masters studying communication and culture at The University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her current research focuses on the way people create authentic identities online.  Samantha's blog Ashore looks at everyday life through metaphors and a camera lens, mostly in close-up. She believes photos should look more like memories and in Motown records on Sunday mornings. Even though I love (I mean, really love) browsing bookstores, back-cover paragraphs just don’t work for me. They’re all plot synopsis, and no “this book made me realize that love is the bravest choice!” or “this book made me ugly cry on public transportation.”

So, I asked my friends Laura and Meg for a recommendation over coffee at Stumptown in New York. Both of them are heart-stirring writers, and they’re my go-to girls for books that make me feel.

After our chat and a little iPhone voice-memo magic, here are five books to make you feel hopeful, encouraged, understood, inspired, and interested---respectively.

Recommended by Laura Marie Meyers | Little Things and Curiosities

Love Walked In by Marisa De Los Santos When people ask me for book recommendations (which happens a lot because I’m a full time writer!) my number one choice is Love Walked In. I’m a sucker for characters that stay with you long after you’ve finished the book---as if you might actually run into them somewhere. With names like Cornelia and Teo, they were so unlike anyone I’ve ever known that I wanted to find pieces of them in people around me. This book follows so many different types of love that you’re not really sure which is the most important---whether it’s the love of a child, or the love of a family member, or the love of a lover. It’s about every type of love.

And really, I’m a sucker for the title. I love the ide of love walking in---as if it was somewhere else and then stepped through the door. Like Love was out doing it’s own thing and it wanted to drop in on you one day. Love walked in? “Oh! Hey, Love! It’s been a while, fancy seeing you here!”

Recommended by Meg Fee | The Wild and Wily Ways of a Brunette Bombshell

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed Dear Sugar is a collection of advice columns written by Cheryl Strayed, previously written under the pseudonym “Sugar”. Advice columns are usually all about the person asking for advice and not the person giving it. But, she totally turned the thing on its head and decided to talk from her own personal experience.

I think this book is so great because every time you think you know the advice she is going to give---it isn’t. Her advice just calls attention to what the person is actually telling her. They already know the answer. She tells people that they have to be guided by their truest truth, and that is an immovable thing.

Two of my favorite pieces of advice from her are: “every last one of us can do better than give up” and “we have to reach in the direction of the life we want.” I think about that last one a lot. Real change is happening on the level of the gesture. It’s one person creating a tiny revolution in their own life.

Recommended by Samantha Shorey | Ashore

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby “Only people of a certain disposition are frightened of being alone for the rest of their lives at twenty-six.” If you’re that type of person---and I definitely am---then High Fidelity is a book for you. Rob, an English record storeowner, narrates the story in the days after his live-in girlfriend moves out of their apartment. Hornby’s writing is funny, full of emotion, and punctuated by music references and “top 5” lists.  I’d like almost any book about heartbreak, but this one especially captures the messiness and uncertainty of this in-between age---the unquietable desire to love and be loved, but the fear of being tied down. In times of happiness and in times of sadness the question is the same: is this all there is? or will something better come along?

Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time by Jeff Speck Walkable City is the perfect book for cocktail party conversations with the hip and urban. After reading it, I’ve started quite a few sentences with “did you know _____?”. (Did you know that additional highway lanes often make congestion worse because of “induced demand”?). Being from Portland, Oregon, I have first-hand experience with a lot of the things that Speck says make a city walkable---and ultimately, wonderful. His argument is so compelling because it has less to do with buying into “being green” and more to do with the tangible things that make life better. Cities have corner coffee shops, chance encounters on the sidewalks, easy errands, and less time spent in traffic. All of these are the reasons why cities like mine and San Francisco, Chicago, New York and even Charleston are attracting disproportionate numbers of the bright and creative.

Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion I’m pretty sure Joan Didion is my spirit animal! Slouching Toward Bethlehem is a collection of her essays about California and the counter-culture movement, written in the style of “New Journalism”. It isn’t removed third-person newspaper writing---her sentences have such extraordinary presence and clarity. She’s inspiring to me as a researcher too, because she’s acutely interested in the way people live their every day lives.

One of the personal essays in this book, On Self Respect, is the most important piece of non-fiction I’ve ever read. In it she writes “People with self-respect have the courage of their mistakes. They know the price of things.” Without it “we are peculiarly in thrall to everyone we see, curiously determined to live out . . . their false notion of us.” As a people-pleaser, it’s a bit of tough love that I’ve always needed.

How to See in the Dark

Sibyl, In the past few months, my family has suffered two major tragedies, and a few minor ones.  Now every time my husband leaves the house and doesn't answer his cell phone I think he's dead.  Most of me knows this is irrational, but until he gets home or contacts me, I'm a bit of a mess.  I can't afford the $170/hr to see a shrink, but sometimes I don't know how I'll move through the world without feeling at any moment someone I love could die or be hurt.  How can I move past this?

Sincerely,

Irrational

Dearest Irrational,

I have good news and bad news.  Since I know it would calm your anxiety to get it out of the way, let's start with the bad news.

You are not going to get past this.  It is going to become part of who you are.  These traumas, whatever they are, are changing and shaping you.  Who you become in the face of them is up to you.

We'll get to that.  Before you can worry about who you're going to be, you have to survive these first traumatized months.  First of all, explain to your husband that for right now, you need him to answer the phone every time you call.  He doesn't have to talk, he can answer with a text that just says "I'm here".  But for right now, that is what you need -- to know that he is alive.

It is perfectly okay to be Irrational right now, when life makes so little sense.  It’s okay to be a mess.  It’s okay to put your hands on his face every time he returns to you, and say, “I thought I lost you.  You’re back.  We’re home.”

If he really objects to this imposition, put a time limit on it, "I just need this for the next 2-4 weeks.  Then we can reassess."  Trauma is a huge relationship litmus test, so if he can be there for you in this, you will only get closer.

Now for some good news: you don’t have to go it alone.   Of course you can't afford $170/hour for a therapist.  Who can?  That fee is absurd.  I don't know where you live, but I bet there's a clinic or a graduate school nearby that has therapy interns that could see you for as little as $25/session.  If you live in California, and any of your recent tragedies are from violent crimes, you can get therapy through a program called Victims of Crime.

So, with a little bit of research about clinics, schools, and resources in your area, you can see a therapist that you can afford to help you through this time.  You'll have to go through this dark period of your life no matter what, but you shouldn't have to go through it without a guide.  Therapists are trained to walk alongside folks who have experienced tragedies while holding the lantern to help them see the way.

So, with your supports in place, you'll be able to dive in to the crux of the matter.  These recent tragedies have pulled the veil off of your life and you are seeing humans for what we really are: ephemeral.  Our lives, no matter how bright and beautiful, will one day pass away.  It is a horrible panic attack-inducing truth.  But it is also what makes our lives have a sense of urgency, what propels us to ever do anything of consequence, what gives us something worth fighting for.

When my beloved father died, I spent a grief-stricken winter laying face up on my bed, immobile, staring at the one lonely snowflake I had hung from my ceiling, reciting my favorite poems and feeling the chill of a world in which my anchor had been pulled up.  I was adrift.  And terrified.

So, when it came time to register for classes at my university, I signed up for an intense course in Death and Dying, in which we read 12 books about death; theological, philosophical, and personal texts.  The professor's father was dying as he taught the class.  He and I spent several afternoons in his office, laughing at the absurdity of death and sitting in silence at the horror of it.  It was insane to immerse myself so fully in my grief, but I had a therapist I trusted and my fiancee by my side, so I dove in.  I needed to make sense of the world before I could commit myself fully to living in it.

Perhaps you are not about to take such an undeniably intellectual pursuit.  However, do something to make sense of your world, or you will find yourself trying to control it in odd ways.  Pulling out bits of your hair and lining them up in straight rows, restricting certain foods to cheat death's knocking, calling your loved ones obsessively -- I've been there, I know this behavior.  But how you face these tragedies will direct a good portion of your life.  Don't judge yourself for however you experience grief, but strive to get the better of it.  Just the fact that you wrote in to this column shows you are ready to face these fears.

Finally, do something that makes you feel really alive.  Take up boxing, write a poem every day, hike the hills behind your house, sing at a monthly open mic night.  Whatever it is, choose something that brings you close to the core of life, but does not throw you over.  Grind your feet into the earth, finding your shoring beneath you.

Remind yourself why you want to remain a citizen of this world.  Give yourself visceral experiences of the beauty of this life, despite the pain we inevitably incur.  Love so fiercely that death has no lasting sting, just a dull ache that reminds you that what you’ve lost lives on in you, propelling you to further bravery in loving.

Love,

Sibyl

Needing the New

Growing up, whenever there was a school vacation (regardless of length), I felt compelled to be different upon my return.  A three-day weekend prompted me to scavenge the mall, seeking out a perfect GAP t-shirt that would make all of the other seventh graders drool with corporate envy.  A week over Easter meant a new haircut or an unhealthy amount of time spent laying in my pool, trying to cultivate the perfect golden brown skin-tone (I am half Irish; this is not easy).  Summer break?  I needed to travel to far-flung places to build my sophistication arsenal.  I needed an accent, or at least a fake one.  I needed to lose weight or gain muscle, to learn gymnastics or grow three inches.  I needed, on that first day of school, the look in my friends’ eyes that said, “you’re a better you.” The world we live in, of course, both helps in creating this need for change and makes achieving it all too easy.  A quick perusal of the magazines on newsstands right now showcases too many “new you!” headlines to count, whether it be how to lose 10 pounds fast or reverse aging or try a new hairstyle that will change your life; flipping open the same magazines reveals advertisements and articles geared towards becoming your best self, over and over and over again.

And now, the pinnacle of the makeover madness, the holiday designed to remind us, yet again, that we’re still striving; that we will, in fact, always be striving: New Year’s.  Stressed and strung out from too much family time and too delicious gingerbread men, bloated from the eleventh eggnog cocktail and bleary eyed from waking up to play Santa, we look at New Year’s and think, “yeah, that sounds good. I’ll resolve to be better.”  Because who couldn’t stand to be a little better?  And because, of course, the resolution is the easiest part.

My need for drastic change has subsided over the years.  I remember distinctly returning to the hometown I’d moved away from when I was thirteen.  I was now sixteen.  Since leaving, I’d spent a summer abroad in Germany.  I’d stopped wearing bell bottoms (so unfashionable!) and moved on to bootcut jeans.  My hair was longer and less frizzy, my skin was beginning to emerge from under its sea of zits.  I rang the doorbell of an old friend’s house and stood on her porch, trying to cock my hip out just so.  She opened the door.

“Liz!” she said, flinging her arms around me.

“Hey,” I said, my irrational teenage heart sinking.  “I thought you’d hardly recognize me.”

She pulled back and looked me up and down.  “Nope, I recognize you perfectly.” She caught the look in my eye and frowned.  “Why?” she said.  “Did you not want me to?”

“I just wanted to be, you know . . . different,” I mumbled.

She swooped me into her arms again.  “But I,” she said, “wanted to see Liz.”  While I was disappointed, she got exactly what she wanted.

The ten pounds, the red hair, the black, brown or green hair, the tan, the pale skin, the contacts, the new dress: all of it is to get you that much closer to a person you like, not change you in the eyes of anyone else.  My friend would’ve recognized me no matter what.  The question was if I had become the person I wanted to recognize.  If I had become a person I could like.

This New Year’s, I’m resolving to stay the course.  Like many people my age, I’m learning to love myself a little bit more every year, and any drastic left or right turns might impede that journey.  I resolve to enjoy exactly who I am right now, and exactly who I may be in a week, or a month, or a year.

Happy New Year’s to everyone.  May your night and all the subsequent ones be bright.

A Christmas Present

A lovely video by Molly McIntyre

Home

Faded ticket stubs, dried rose petals folded inside notes of high school love, gleeful photos of attempting to blow out candles on childhood birthday cakes, and journals describing firsts---the first time away from home, the first crush, the first heartbreak, and the first encounter with grief. A whole life, a full life, is contained in the dusty leather photo albums and journals, remnants of a world before Facebook and iPhones. This past life, which I visit upon coming “home,” feels distant. I associate with the girl in the photos, whose memories I find in my childhood bedroom---the one smiling in the photos, wistfully blowing dandelion seeds off a dark green stem; the one who scribbled “BFFs” on the back of pictures and saved notes secretly passed in class, attempting to immortalize friendship; and the one with the mischievous grin of adventure-scheming, creating imaginary worlds in the backyard. Yet, she feels distant.

Home is now packaged with the holidays and my trips are fewer and shorter. At times it astounds me that over ten years ago, I packed my bags, ready for a new world in Boston. Without fail, upon returning to this bedroom, my attention is drawn to the old photo albums (which I aptly called “memory books”), scribbled notes, and journals---each full of its own memories. Perhaps by searching through the past I can find answers to the persistent questions of the present. Perhaps simply reigniting the memories, the feelings, of a life contained within a single community and countable friendships, will bring resolutions to questions in a life not contained by space and experiences.

What pulls me to these photos and scribbles is the inability to return to these cherished moments---childhood, a past sense of friendship and family, or, in many ways, the version of myself that existed here. As the brilliant article in the Harvard Business Review, How to Move Around without Losing your Roots notes, “. . . home is where we are from---the place we begin to be.” Home is where the “self” I began with is.

As a wise friend told me recently that we carry the “versions” of ourselves from the past with us.

The self in the photos is confident in belonging; joyful, yet naive to realities beyond her world; and, yet this self longed for understanding beyond her immediate experience. While the current version feels distant from the photos and scribbles, so much of the searching, creating, and defining in my life was born in this mischievous grin and the very first iteration of home and self. The notion of home, even if it is past, challenges me to assess changes and growth, while tying my current life back to the Colorado landscapes, the house my father built, and friendships helped me define who I was in the beginning. As distant as I may ever feel, my current self is rooted in this past narrative of home and place. If home is an experience of “belonging, a feeling of being whole and known,” as the HBR article describes, it is not my current self in the place that “I began” that feels at home. Yet, the self I remember when I visit may hold joyful child-like insights and mischievous adventure schemes to inform my continued search for this notion of “home.”

Would you like that book in print or pixels?

Armed with a shiny new gift card, I set about fulfilling my reading wish list this week. There was only one problem. For each title, I hovered over the “add to cart” button, wavering unsteadily between two options: print or ebook. In the past, the print vs. digital decision has always been an obvious one. I wanted to feel the weight of a book in my hands, inhale that new (or used) book smell, and wander my way through the geography of its pages. My Kindle library, on the other hand, is made up largely of books I couldn’t find at the university library two hours before a class. The sensory aspect of print always won out; ebooks were second-string.

Lately, though, the gravitational pull of digital has dragged me right into the center of the debate. It used to seem as if digital libraries were isolated ones. When all of our recent reads drift into the abyss of the cloud, we lose that particular intimacy of hovering over a friend’s bookshelves, running a finger over the titles, and uncovering the stories behind the stories.

That’s the thing about personal libraries. They bear witness to the places we’ve been and the people we’ve loved. The collective provenance of our books is like a time capsule. Where were you when you read this one, and who were you with, and where did you get it, and who had it before you? The used books and those with personal inscriptions are of particular interest. They remind us of our connections to friends and strangers.

And anyways, have you ever had an author sign your ebook?

But despite the compelling arguments for print (and I can think of many more), I am beginning to glimpse the possibilities for reading in community with ebooks. You can read together long-distance and share impressions in real time with 24-Hour Bookclub. You can share favorite passages with Readmill, and you can even browse your friends’ digital libraries with Goodreads. I’m just touching the surface of these and so many other possibilities, but I’m excited about reading as a communal sport. I hope it lands comfortably somewhere on the spectrum between very quiet alone-time reading and social media overwhelm.

In the end, I bought one ebook and one print. I’m devouring the former while I wait a whole forty-eight hours for the latter to arrive, in all of its weighty, book-scented glory. As for the rest of my list, I’ll let you know how it goes.

XVIII. Provence

Alice is from California, and has a sweet, kind way of speaking. She is one of the few students at ACPP who will stay for the entire year rather than a single semester. I admire her for that, and almost wish that I still had the desire to do the same. A group of us begin a weekly tradition of hanging out on a fountain in the square in from of the marie. In France, you are allowed to drink alcohol in public areas, so we buy cheap bottles of rosé, the region’s specialty, and bags of various Haribo candies from convenience stores and spend hours on the fountain.

Our group talks and laughs and complains about the unpleasant director of our program, an unexpected way for all of us to bond in this new setting. Our voices echo off the high stone walls of the nearby cathedral and faculté des lettres, the university for students of literature. I am one of the few students in the program whose French is advanced enough to take a class there.

One of these nights, Alice asks all of us to stay for the year too. But I know my limits at this point. “I’d love to,” I tell her, “but there is absolutely no way that I would.”

Gossip Girl is Dead. Long Live Gossip Girl.

Dear Sibyl, I'm trying to figure out how to be a supportive friend to one person (friend A), while not feeling like I'm talking trash behind another friend's back (friend B).  Sometimes A will get frustrated about a conversation or something else that B said/did.  She has a point, and I've often supported that, but then it felt like I was entering mean girl territory.  Is there a good way to be supportive, but not nasty?  I'm also trying to figure out how to not be the go-to person for these comments, since I feel like I'm betraying B.  Sounds like I'm back in middle school, uugghh!

Thanks, Gossip Girl

Dear GG,

Friend A is involving you in a fun little game of Triangulation.  That’s when you have something you need to say to one person, but instead of making a straight line between you and them, you add a whole new angle by saying it instead to a third person.

Relationships are confusing.  Everyone needs to express how they are feeling about their friends from time to time to someone else, for some reality testing and to work out how to address it with that person.  A simple conversation of, “Uh, that was whack when she made that joke about my kid, right?  Okay?!  How do I tell her to step off without just saying ‘86 your shit’ and dropping a sippy cup on the ground?” is sometimes necessary.

But here’s how you can tell if it’s triangulation, and not normal relationship processing:

1. Does Friend A plan to do anything about Friend B’s behavior?  If she is preparing to confront Friend B, or, at the very least, put some boundaries between her and Friend B so she stops getting hurt, then you can totally walk her through that.  But if she is just using you as a validating force to make her feel better about secretly hating on Friend B while she still hangs out with her, then we need to rename her Frenemy A, because what they have is less a friendship, more a bad romance.

2. Is Friend A saying things to you that she would never, ever, say to Friend B’s face?  If asked, “Hey, you’ve seemed sorta weird to me lately.  Is everything okay?”, would Friend A fess up?  If not, then this is at best a bitch session, and at worst, a weird power play to get you “on her side” against Friend B.  You’ve got to take yourself out of the equation.

So, if you’ve realized you are indeed in a triangulating situation, then here’s what you do.  You tell Friend A that you are no longer willing, under any circumstances, to discuss Friend B.  You can do it in such a way that is not judgmental of what Friend A is doing, by saying, “I’m working on my personal relationships, and realizing that if I say things directly, it really helps my peace of mind.  So, let’s talk about us and how we’re doing, and leave Friend B out of it.”

Will it be awkward to say this?  HELL YES.  But if there’s one thing I can encourage you, Gossip Girl, or ANY of my dear readers out there, it’s this: BE AWKWARD.  We must, as a community and as a culture, increase our capacity for awkwardness in human relationships.  When things are uncomfortable, perhaps it is because we are getting very close to them being real.

If you need a warm up, start small.  Bring up your dead dad at a cocktail party.  Go ahead.  Mention your impending divorce at the library, when someone sees the stack of self-help books you’re checking out.  With a couple of these chance encounters under your belt, having not been reduced to tears when the other person looked at you askance at first but then said, “Oh yeah, this book here at the top of your pile really helped me when I had to cut my mom out of my life because she was using crack”, you may have the courage to tell Friend A that you’re no longer interested in chats about Friend B.

You’ll have to reinforce it, probably a few times.  Friend A will fall back into the old patterns of discussion, will even say, “I know we said we wouldn’t talk about Friend B, but you can NOT believe what she did the other day when she got in my car, smelling like . . .” Cut her off right there!  Don’t take the bait!  Resist your olfactory curiosity and say, “Oh, let me stop you here.  I was dead serious about my request not to talk about Friend B.  I need to have my own experience of her right now.  Why don’t we discuss your job situation---did you say you were getting laid off, or getting a promotion?  I know it was something career-related, the few months ago that we actually got around to talking about you.  Let’s not let Friend B take over our catch-up time.  Fill me in!”

It will be surprising to find how this changes your friendship with Friend B.  You may find her delightful, without that worm in your ear of all the ways she pissed off Friend A recently.  Conversely, you may realize that you don’t even like Friend B, and you were just keeping the relationship with her because you were addicted to following the soap opera between she and Friend A, and it’s time to let that friendship go.

With all that time freed up from worrying about what Friend A and Friend B are going to do next, you may have chance to talk about . . . yourself.

xoxo,

Sibyl

Do you have a quandary that you'd like Sibyl to help you with? Submit it here!

Facetime vs Real Face to Face

When I lived in the US, I would call my mom and dad while I was walking around New York.  “Okay,” I would say, when either answered the phone.  “I have roughly four and a half minutes to catch up before going underground on the subway.”  This was our main form of communication: in those four and a half minutes, we talked (quickly) about the highlight reel of our lives to the background music of ambulances wailing, cashiers expectantly demanding money from me, and various homeless people proffering marriage proposals (needless to say, I lived in a great neighborhood).  Peppering these primary conversations were the little moments when, despite Google and Facebook iPad apps and the myriad ways we can acquire information in the modern world, I just wanted parental input.  “How long can you keep leftovers in the fridge?” I’d ask my dad, staring at spaghetti that seemed to have self-generated a green and fuzzy pesto like topping (self-generating sauces: the food of the future!).  “What day is the cheapest to buy flights again?” I’d ask my mom, squinting at my computer screen.  While Bing may have had a more accurate answer, my mom’s was the most trusted one. Since moving to London, my parental conversations have moved to the land of Skype, a world where calls are announced by a strange symphony of beeps and dials; where faces pixelate in and out of the picture; where half the time spent talking to my parents, complete Skype neophytes, is spent saying, “Click the video button.  The one with the camera.  If you can’t see yourself, I can’t see you. Hold the camera higher – higher – dear Lord, please don’t show me your chest again.”

Several things have happened in the switch to Skype; the most perhaps obvious of which is that parents, surprise surprise, love seeing their children’s faces.  All conversations open and close with, “You’re looking so healthy!” and “What shirt are you wearing?” and “How did you cheeks get so pink?” and other variations of: keep on keepin’ on, my DNA-totin’ progeny.

Below the rosy skin and the same shirt I’m always wearing (come on, Mom!) there’s a different, more fundamental shift in the nature of the conversations.  We talk less often, certainly, but when we do, the conversation has an unprecedented level of focus.  You choose a time and date and make a plan, rather than a slapdash time filler.  You are, quite literally, staring into each other’s eyes (save for the moments when – and you know who are – you’re looking deeply into the eyes of yourself).  You’re freed from distraction, less the person on the other end catch a glimpse of what you’re doing and squawk, their annoyance transcending thousands of miles, “Are you doing something else?”

It makes for some of the most focused conversations I’ve ever had.  Conversations that quickly blow past the day-to-day trivialities that fill a quickie check in; conversations that move into the realm of history (personal and otherwise), of the world, of what you really mean when you tell this story or that one.  The truth is, after all, written all over your face.

On the flip side, the absence of those gap filling phone calls has had another effect entirely: once afraid, in any moment, to walk by myself, to wait for a bus by myself, to simply be, I am now forced to confront my boredom and live with the worlds both around me and coursing through my own mind.  At home, without my trusty text message parental net, I figure out on my own whether my leftovers will kill me, or if it’s reasonable to spend half my life savings on a flight to New York (hint: it’s not).  I get to spend more real time with both myself and my parents.

While it should be noted that it’s not real real time, as I’m gearing up for the holiday season (I’m writing this article eight hours into a plane ride, somewhere over the Great Lakes) I feel more connected to my parents than ever, despite being further, physically, than I’ve ever been.  And, as much as I’ve enjoyed the Picasso-esque, pixelated versions of their faces, I’m excited to see their real ones.

I'm Sexy and I'm Over It

Dear Sibyl, I am a former sex worker (exotic dancer & some fetish work) who has left that phase of my life for fairer pastures. Since dropping out of that world, my perspective on my experiences has evolved, and as of now, I have scant positive feelings about it all.

A fun and fascinating lady has entered my life recently, and we are involved in a creative project together. She is a current sex worker (erotic massage provider/dominatrix). Our project entails one-on-one time and I'm sure our relationship will take on an intimate aspect (of the non-romantic variety) in the near future. The thing is, I am nervous and in fact afraid of this, due to her profession. I understand why she does it—to support herself while in school, as I did—and I don't judge her at all. But I'm scared that in getting close to her, somehow her present—my past—will affect me. I don't want to go back to that place emotionally, but I fear it's only around the corner, although my rational mind knows that's ridiculous.

We have a considerable age difference (7 years), and I should be able to be the bigger person and not convey insecurity. Of course, I don't want to be the older, wiser one who knows better, even as part of me wants to tell her to get out of the business ASAP. How can I stop projecting my fear of my own past onto her? And how can I be a good friend to her when I have such close-to-home issues about her job?

Thanks, Sibyl!

Sincerely,

Shipwrecked Stripper Swimming to Shore

Dearest Shipwrecked,

Have you considered that this woman has been placed in your life like a gift, one that, if you choose to open it, could be a Pandora’s box of healing experiences for you?  I have a friend who complains a lot, but then follows up all those complaints with, “Well, I guess it’s just AFGE.”  “What’s affguh?”, I finally asked one day.  “Another Fucking Growth Experience!”, she cried.

I advise you to dive right into this lovely AFGE that has landed in your sexy little lap.  In order to do that, you must first shed your clothes once more, not your actual garments, but rather this suit of need to be “The Bigger Person”.  I don’t know who laid that outfit for you on your bed before school one morning, but it’s time to throw that uniform into the Goodwill pile. Don’t be the Wise Old Owl, telling her exactly how many licks it takes to get to the center of the Tootsie roll pop.  I think you should definitely just go ahead and convey your insecurity.  What could be more charming?

In order for this friendship to get off the loading dock and into the deep waters of a real relationship, you've got to come clean with her about your feelings.  First, you'll have to figure out what those feelings are.  Obviously, fear.  You mentioned you don't want your past to affect you, but I wonder if what you really meant was "infect" you, for your past to bubble up and poison your life with your feeling state from that time. So, let me speak this to you now: You are not the person you once were.  If you were to find yourself in exactly the same position that you were in when you were doing sex work, I am positive you would act differently, feel differently, and there would be different outcomes.  So, even if your worst fear materializes and this girl’s profession somehow lures you back in, you’ll treat it differently.

You obviously care about this friend, and I wonder, when you were in her place, did you have any doubts about it?  Would it have been helpful to have real conversations with people who had been there, not just having to put on a brave face with your fellow sex workers, ("This is great, right?  We are making so much money, we are redefining feminism!") or hiding your job from people who wouldn't understand because they haven't been there?  Does your friend even know that you are a former sex worker?  It could put her at ease, and it could give you a chance to work through some of your sticky emotions with that time in your life.  I have this sneaking suspicion that you are not meant to teach/save her at all.  She has been placed in your life in order to teach/save you.

Rather than expounding to her about all the ways being a sex worker has had detrimental effects on your life to come, what if you took this opportunity to write a letter to your past self? You can put in it all the advice you are tempted to share with your new friend.  Here, I’ll start it for you:

Dear Younger Version of Me, I forgive you.  Dang, sometimes I really wish you hadn’t started me on certain paths that I am still trying to rid myself of.  I realize now that you did that because of _______ and _______ and though that was really fucked up, I have compassion for you now.  I do not see you as broken or wrong, just human. I love your humanity, I cherish your imperfections, and I want to accept you fully, so that I can feel like a whole person, rather than this self with a shadow I’m trying to shake.  Currently, I’m a little afraid of you.  I’ve worked hard not to let the choices you made back then dictate the rest of my life.  However, I’m scared that by befriending you, you’ll force yourself into the driver’s seat once again, and my life will be taken over by a ghost of Christmas past. So, as I seek to befriend you so that I can be friends with a woman who reminds me of you, go easy, okay?  Tell me when it’s time to take breaks, stop thinking about this stuff for awhile, and come back to it later.  I’m trusting you, don’t let me down!  We’re in this together. Love, Current Me.

Add your own touches to that primer, Shipwrecked, and stop swimming away.  Find your own shore, within.

Love, Sibyl

Do you have a quandary that you'd like Sibyl to help you with? Submit it here!

Mom, Interrupted

Dear Sibyl,

I have a friend that can sometimes be lovely and sometimes very self-centered.  We know each other through a playgroup.  What turns some people off is that after one person shares something (story, anecdote, etc), she immediately whips it back to her and her life.  A few of us have brought up how we often don't feel included in the conversation, but we don't have the courage, or words to bring this up to her.  Any advice?

Sincerely, Interrupted

Dear Interrupted,

It is ironic that your narcissistic friend is part of your playgroup, as she somehow managed to get through toddlerhood without learning how to share, or play the game of catch.  I hate that this bully has taken over your playgroup.  You've got to do what mamas do with bullies on the playground: confront them, directly, kindly, firmly, and if they can't mind the rules of the game, don't play with them anymore.

Teaching adults how to communicate is really irritating.  However, it sounds like you have some love for this woman, and it is that love that you need to tap into to give her the business.  Listen, right now, no one is enjoying playgroup, with her being the equivalent of a Hungry Hungry Hippo, gobbling up all the conversation balls as fast as she can.  If you turn her off by telling her how much her behavior is bothering everyone, you may upset one person but save the experience of all the others. So, I would suggest speaking to her, even though narcissists detest being confronted.  Don't beat around the bush, just tell her straight out, "Honey, sometimes you make everything about you.  And it's a major turn-off.  You've got to learn about reflective listening.  Let's try it now.  What are you hearing me say?"  Then have her say back to you the gist of what you're telling her.

It is not our job to save our friends from themselves.  I know it is daunting to confront her, but isn't it worse that everyone secretly hates her?  In protecting her from that truth, you are denying her the chance to have real relationships with all of you.

When I was a child, there was so much that was out of my control.  I grew up in a home of a recovering alcoholic with a recovering co-dependent by his side.  I understood almost nothing about their communication, but I knew it was filled with both acrimony and love, which was terrifying and confusing for me to behold.  I learned to accept my circumstances and the reality that I had no say in how things went down.

Unfortunately, I did this unconsciously, so it led me to go completely off the rails in the areas that I did have control over, like the drugs I put into my body and the people I allowed to touch it.

Then I grew up, and it wasn’t until I was about 28 and living with a housemate who the rest of the house despised that I realized, “Holy shit.  I have control over my own life.  I can just ask this bitch to leave!”  So, we did.  We sat her down, and told her it wasn’t working out.  We didn’t make it “a teaching moment”, we didn’t tell her we hated when she would eat her bagel really loudly and pretend that none of us existed, her passive aggressive notes or her creepy boyfriend with oracular issues.  It was a huge sigh of relief to realize I could shape my own experiences, and take care of myself in this way.

All of this is to say, if your friend can’t learn to play well with others, aka take time actually listening rather than just waiting for her turn to talk, let her know you want to be her friend on a one-on-one basis, rather than in a group.  Schedule her for short chunks of time, when you have the energy to listen to a monologue.  It’s your life.  Don’t look back.

Love, Sibyl

Do you have a quandary that you'd like Sibyl to help you with? Submit it here!

Asking for It, with Sibyl: An Introduction

Who is Sibyl?  Sibyl is the witchy woman you meet at a party and figure you'll avoid because she looks bizarre, but somehow end up sitting near all night, telling her about your roommate troubles and your theories about your family secrets.  Sibyl is the older sister you always thought you'd have, who'd sit you down and help you do your hair in just the way that suits you, and sticks up for you on the playground when everyone else is calling you "Brace Face."  Sibyl is the friend who shows up just to be with you, not talk, when you're facing the deepest grief of your life---when your partner has run off with a lover, when your baby is dead in your hands, when you're scandalized and have been pushed out of a job you love.  Sibyl is your queertacular friend who takes you by the hand and pulls you to the dance floor, spinning until you both dissolve into fits of laughter, forgetting your fears.  Sibyl is a ruined woman. Sibyl is married with children. Sibyl was on the Honor Roll, then cut class to go out to the soccer field to take a tab of acid and stare at the sky.  Sibyl may spend most of her time with her head in books about the nature of the soul, but she totally cares that Duchess Catherine is pregnant.

Who should write in to Sibyl?   Sibyl is for the ladies.  Sibyl is for the ladies who used to be dudes.  Sibyl is for the ladies who want to be dudes, who are dudes within.  Sibyl is for the ladies who love ladies, Sibyl is for the hopelessly straight.  Sibyl is for the wallflowers, who think no one is ever going to listen or care.  Sibyl is for the Mamas and the Papas.  Sibyl is for those of you putting a brave face on being alone.

What should you ask Sibyl? Whatever is twisting in your gut, those issues that make it hard to breathe, that you know are mysteriously killing you, even though they should not be a big deal.  They are are a big deal.  You are a big deal.  Ask away.

And to All a Good Night

What happens when you put your Jewish friend in charge of stringing the lights on the tree, is that you get to the bottom and have no way to plug them in.  “What I have here in my hand is two female parts, but it seems like I need two male parts,” I called out to my oldest friend.  She looked perplexed, herself, having never been the one to do the lights on the tree.  The tree endeavor (both selection and installation) had always been the province of her husband, who made a big production out of it with her kids.  He had been gone just three months and the whole operation carried a pall of sadness.  I was determined to establish a fresh tradition, help her feel confident in her new role and win the day with enthusiasm.  The kids had been good sports at the tree lot that morning, although it must have been terribly disorienting to be there without their father.  I felt the least we could do was to get the tree going before nightfall.  Ultimately, we had to call up our reserves---two effective and creative friends (with four children between them), both Mommies who were responsible for all things tree-related in their homes.  Within the space of twenty minutes, those two had stripped the tree, restrung the lights and carefully dotted the whole situation with ornaments.  That day, my status as “other” when it comes to celebrating Christmas and participating in the “Holiday Season” took a back seat to being present for a loved one. I returned home feeling decidedly less sorry for myself.  Even considering my pattern (like so many American Jews) of feeling a bit left out at this time of year, I had to consider the heartache of my friend and so many others who have lost a spouse or someone close to them, knowing the pain of a loss like that is much more acute during Holidays, birthdays, anniversaries and the assorted benchmarks of life.

As much as I have my own issues with the Christmas behemoth, its value as a touchstone for many families in this country is undeniable.  It is a marker around which people create important memories with one another.  Children experience Christmas as an expression of familial love and have the opportunity to be showered with special attention by parents and extended family.  Adults take time away from work to be with their families and reflect.  Sometimes people even use the Holiday as a way to process wounds that haunt them from childhood.  The corrective experience of making your own Christmas for your own family as an adult must be incredibly powerful on a number of levels.

There still resides inside me, the smart-ass fourth grader who wrote an essay about how the White House Christmas tree lighting ceremony was a violation of church and state.  This represented my desperate attempt to communicate the plight of the American, Jewish 8-year-old during the Holidays.  Back in the 80s, they didn’t really show much of Reagan lighting an obligatory Menorah somewhere or sitting down with his staff for a game of Dreidl.  And I likely would have argued that, to be fair, he shouldn’t be publicly participating in any religious celebration.  They also didn’t give Chanukah much air-time in the media in general back then, which made it even more critical that I drag my Mom into my elementary classrooms so that she could fry up Latkes on an electric griddle.  There is almost nothing more tragic than a bunch of disinterested school children carting floppy paper plates of greasy potato pancakes and dollops of applesauce to their desks to “enjoy.”  “Also, we get chocolate coins!” I asserted to anyone who would listen.

While I feel certain that I will be confronted with many uncomfortable conversations with my own children about why we don’t adorn our home or really do anything amazing at this time of year, I also trust that they will find ways to turn their outsider status into something interesting.  They might end up with a fantastic sense of humor about it.  It might increase their empathy for people that experience actual “other” status (people of color, immigrants, gay families) and who live permanently outside the mainstream.

I will always feel a little twinge at Christmas time.  I will try and remind myself that I can appreciate someone else’s traditions and how profound they are without needing to participate myself.  We have our own traditions on December 25th– Dim Sum!  Blockbuster movies!---and I remain grateful that I won’t need to cling to them like a life-raft, girding against loss.

Welcome, Mattia!

“For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.” ― Eric Roth, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - screenplay

Dear Mattia,

You came into this world in a warm afternoon at the end of September.

I first saw you when you were a few days old and I couldn’t help but thinking how perfect you were–resting and smiling peacefully in your mom’s arms, ten tiny toes, ten tiny fingers. You won’t remember the day you were born, and you won’t remember the few years that will follow, but trust me, you changed a lot of lives with your arrival.

You may look like a lot of other babies to the rest of the world, but to your parents you are an angel who came here to bring great hope and happiness, to be loved and to give love in return. You made me an aunt, and my husband an uncle. From this day forth, you will be our wish for better days.

You have a chance to make the world a better place, but please don’t feel under pressure. You don’t have to save the world---just follow your path knowing that we are all close to you and ready to hold your hands through the most difficult times. For now, just keep in mind you are a lucky baby---you have been born into a wonderful family.

My dearest Mattia, this world is not an easy one. You will learn a lot, and it won’t ever get simpler. But keep in mind that this world is an amazing place, a place you will discover day by day, through other people’s eyes, through your travels. Try not to focus on shadows and darkness, and find joy in the hardest times because, believe it or not, small or big issues happen, but there’s a chance you will be laughing about them later. I can’t promise you won’t ever experience adversity, but the most important part is to be comfortable in your own skin, and never apologize for who you are.

Growing up can be painful at times, and we all tend to close little doors around our hearts to protect ourselves from sorrow and disappointment. Find the strength inside yourself, do not expect people around you to be perfect, because they are just human beings like you. Some people will be good to share a deep friendship with, some others will be good for laughter and a beer, others will disappoint you, and some will make you sad. Not everyone knows how to give love in return, for some hearts are simply frozen or unsophisticated or plain, but you will learn to take from people only what they can give you. Do not expect too much from everyone. Only, remember that you are a boy, a boy who will soon become a man, and when your heart is broken don’t feel ashamed if you want to cry. Just try to always love what you see in the mirror, and allow that person to smile back at you at least once a day.

Feel confident you will know when to open your heart to others. There are thousands of people you will meet, and all of them can teach you something---good or bad. But you will learn small lessons from everyone, so keep your eyes and mind open to them. Always carry an imaginary pen with you, and before the end of the day list who taught you something precious, or something you simply don’t want to forget. In a while, you will find an entire book of stories in your hands, and realize that the most incredible lessons come from unexpected people, whom you’ll meet in the most unexpected places.

You don’t know this yet, so let me tell you, just in case you need me in the future---your Auntie lives pretty much in an imaginary world, made of dreams, stories written by others, and small gems, each one symbolizing a good friend, or a faraway place, or flashes of images belonging to other times and places. Whenever you feel curious to jump into the rabbit hole with me, please raise your hand and I’ll hold it through the small path. I guarantee we will make it back.

Thank you for being with us, and thank you for making me an aunt.

With love,

Your Auntie,

Alice

Looking Forward: Girls.

“This might have been a mistake,” I said. My friend Lily, head cocked in sympathy, nodded. “Definitely a mistake.”

It was a cold night, and we’d just met friends at a favorite bar in our neighborhood. Short on cash, I’d ordered the $4 well whiskey, neat. Its smell alone made my eyes water. And I’d been given a generous pour.

“Brave girl,” someone remarked as I held the tumbler to my lips.

“Would you like me to tell you a story, to distract you while you drink that?” said Lily.

“Yes,” I replied. “Please.”

“Okay,” she said. “This is a story about unicorns.”

And she began.

---

People say that when you find true love, you know. Though I’ve experienced this with the opposite sex before, the same phenomenon has occurred---delightfully, consistently, and much more often---in many of my friendships with girls, as well.

For instance, Kimiko, one of my closest childhood friends, shared a bus seat with me on a field trip in the third grade. We debated afterschool snacks, discussed the size and cuteness of our respective pet rabbits, played MASH---and subsequently spent the next seven years together, so close that we considered ourselves one unit (our combined name was Shimiko). When I moved to LA at fifteen, we traded photo albums, and put together a dictionary of terms we’d created over the course of our friendship---code names for crushes, words only the two of us understood.

And that was just it---there was much about the two of us that only we understood. In so many ways, we spoke the same language.

I knew the same was true of Maya, a high school friend and future Brooklyn roommate, when we spent an afternoon in the parking lot at our school, seated on the roof of her car. We were navigating what I remember to be a very complicated situation involving prom dates. My angst about the situation was almost certainly disproportionate to the circumstances at hand; still, she understood.

And when Linda, my roommate all four years of college, spent countless nights in with me while all of our friends went out, I knew I’d made a special kind of friend---one you know you never have to work to impress, one who understands your history as well as they do their own. Already a sister to six, she’s filled that role for me, as well. She’s family, a touchstone. She feels like home.

I met Lily only months ago, late in the summer, in East River Park. She and another college roommate of mine, Megan, were spending an afternoon sitting in the grass, talking, getting sunburns. We’d all recently been through break-ups; we were heavy-hearted. But that gave us something to talk about. And in the weeks and months that followed, I found so much of the happiness I needed in meeting Megan to do work at coffee shops, in going on late-night adventures with Lily. (When she told me the story about unicorns at the bar, I knew she was someone whose quirkiness I understood.)

Though I’m loathe to make a Sex and the City reference here (much internal deliberation happened before I wrote this paragraph), I can’t help but think of a scene that occurs toward series’ end---it’s one that always makes me feel like weeping. In it, Carrie, set to embark on her ill-fated journey to Paris, says to her friends, “What if I never met you?”

---

Megan and I had dinner together just last weekend and reflected on the past few months over steaming bowls of soup. “My year took a turn the day I came to see you in the park,” I said. “You were lonely in the same way I was. You understood.”

You understood.

What a staggering gift, to have friends who say, “I know what you mean.” Who make you laugh. Who appreciate, and relate to, and love  your eccentricities.

This is what it means to know someone.

It’s what it means to understand.

XVI. Normandie

Frédéric is one of Clémence’s best friends. He studies French literature, wears scarves, and rolls his own cigarettes, which delights me when I am 17 years old and have never met a boy who seems so different, so un-American.

We kiss for the first time at a party at Manon’s house. Emboldened by sweet rum and Cokes, I take his lighter and hold it hostage, flirtatiously demanding payment. Fréd kisses me once, twice. Clémence sees us and squeals for everyone to hear, and instead of blushing with embarrassment, I feel daring. This is how I can be in France, I realize.

We’ve lost track of the hours and the rest of the neighborhood is fast asleep. We are still silly drunk and Manon takes out a board game called Allez, les Escargots! We each line up a colorful wooden snail on the board and roll the dice, moving snails slowly forward, cheering and yelling and trying to get ours to the finish line first.

What Are You Reading (offline, that is)?

Megan Flynn is a self-proclaimed foodie and writer with dreams of a literary life.  She has a master's in Children's Literature and an affinity for cultural studies, good food, caffeine, cute animals, dirty martinis, bookstores, and those first few weeks of autumn. Her hobbies include running, cooking, taking photos, crying over her favorite music, trying to keep her room clean, and blogging away at freckleditalian.com. She currently resides on Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia, where she drinks wine and works in the social media & mobile apps division of a software company in downtown Roanoke. When fall and winter come around with their chilly mornings and fog, I cling to old books. My Norton Anthologies from undergrad move from my bookshelf to my bedside table, and I flip through the bent and sometimes coffee-stained pages of my favorite novels from that time. Sometimes I don’t even read the whole thing; I just page through until I find a section with a lot of underlining or notes in the margins. It reminds me of the days when the majority of my time was spent reading, sharing clothes with my girlfriends, doing work in a library.

But eventually it’s time for a winter with new books. So I’ve compromised this season, toting around three new ones with only one repeater. And I asked an old college friend to tell me what she’s reading right now, too.

--

Atonement by Ian McEwan This is my nostalgic winter read of the year.

“Cecilia knew she could not go on wasting her days in the stews of her untidied room, lying on her bed in a haze of smoke, chin propped on her hand, pins and needles spreading up through her arm as she read her way through Richardson’s Clarissa.”

Atonement very deeply conveys the power of writing. I love McEwan’s ability to tell me a story without being overly emotional and still make me feel more than some Nicholas Sparks novel would. I love that when I first read Atonement, Cecilia and I were both reading our way through Richardson’s Clarissa. It’s a book that will stay with you, and remind you of where you were in life when you first read it.

Les Misérables by Victor Hugo I have literally been working on this book since June. The story is gorgeous, but I sometimes get lost in Hugo’s narration. I take breaks and read other things, which I think is fine, and people keep asking me why I don’t just put it down and forget about it. It’s so long, they say. I know that. But I started it because I thought that any novel that could inspire the songs from Les Misérables, the musical, was worth a try. And I haven’t felt like putting it down for good yet. I’m trying to finish it by Christmas, when the new film version comes out. Hey, I dreamed a dream!

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami From the back cover: “Japan’s most highly regarded novelist now vaults into the first ranks of international fiction writers with this heroically imaginative novel, which is at once a detective story, an ccount of a disintegrating marriage, and an excavation of the buried secrets of World War II.”

One of my smartest friends gave me this book as a gift, and I’m only twenty-five pages in, but when I close the thing I’m left with the feeling that I have no idea what I’m about to get myself into. I mean that in the best possible way—this novel is already beautifully mysterious and odd.

I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter The same professor (my absolute favorite ever) who had me read Atonement and Clarissa in one semester also recommended this book to my class. An English professor with a Ph.D. in British Literature, he said that every year he tries to read something from outside his field in order to see things with an open mind and stay sharp. Although not rocket science, I thought that was amazing. Right now, you’re listening to a woman who had so much trouble with math in school that she shies away from basic addition and subtraction, and certainly doesn’t make time to try to tackle algebra head-on.

Hofstadter addresses the idea of what we mean when we say “I”—is it even real? Is it just a state of consciousness? His writing is more accessible than I anticipated and he tells great stories. Never mind the fact that I bought my copy three years ago and am only on chapter four. I’ll get to it with a bit more energy soon, perhaps once I’m done with Les Misérables.

And as a bonus, here is a suggestion from my dear friend Emily, a 9th grade English teacher. When Emily suggests a book, I always pick it up.

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain This book deliciously tells the story of Ernest Hemingway and Hadley, his first wife. Although this is a fictional account of their marriage, the novel is meticulously accurate on all major plot moments and was clearly written after much research. Readers will be re-introduced to familiar names such as F. Scott, Gertrude Stein, and Ezra Pound as Hadley and Hemingway drink their way around a glittering Paris in the 1920s.

This novel is creatively, gracefully told from the perspective of Hadley, and I couldn't help but find her vulnerability infectious. I thought I knew Hemingway before this novel, but I was amazed to discover how re-shaped my perspective is now on such an electric, but selfish, man. I devoured this novel, knowing all the while that their love didn't last, hoping all the same for Hadley's happiness in the end. Once you've read this novel, you will never read The Sun Also Rises the same way again. (And, if you're like me, that's exactly what you'll pick up once you've finished the final page of The Paris Wife.)

--

So, what are you reading?

When the universe winks [or: Wagon Wheel]

There have been times in my work with communities affected by conflict when I have longed for a stronger belief in a supernatural deity. I have been compelled to pray, to hope that someone out there is listening. At this stage in my life, my imagination of that "supernatural something" that resides outside of ourselves does not take the form of a deity. Rather, my belief can be summarized in the following phrase: The universe is winking.

You know the moments I am describing: In the face of adversity or great irony, of what seems like undue strife, something happens to reassure you that you are not alone, that the world is not laughing in your face, that life unfolds on a continuum and the narratives of joy and heartbreak exist side-by-side. And, if recent experiences with fragility have been any indication, the universe winking at me comes with a soundtrack---Old Crow Medicine Show's "Wagon Wheel."

The song appeared in my life during a relationship that may never have happened had it not been for grief, fragility, and emotional confusion in the first place. As Joan Didion advises in Slouching Towards Bethlehem, "we are well-advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not" and, in that vein, I need to extend compassion to the self who thought she could drown grief in affection and be blind to the traits that would make the affection shallow and the grief immutable. He hated my music. That should have been a clue. Anyone who hates the company that Cat Power and Brandi Carlile and Rachael Yamagata keep, anyone who cannot reconcile himself with my army of women singer-songwriters, is dancing on a different sheet of music than the one in which I live. So he made me a CD. [Pause for nostalgic indulgence in the quaintness of making someone a CD, not a Spotify playlist.]

Of all the tracks on it, Wagon Wheel jumped out. Even after that budding relationship withered, Wagon Wheel lingered as the soundtrack to a segment of life for which I never quite found the words.

***

Second day in Cairo. I met the girls on an email list of foreigners in Egypt looking for roommates. I met the boys on a sailboat on the Nile the night before, on my first day. Coincidentally also the first day of Ramadan, the first of many firsts. We are in the boys' apartment and I am alive with the exhilaration of belonging, with the relief of how quickly one belongs when she is a foreigner among foreigners, a stranger among strangers---all of whom wish to throw out that label and slide over to best friends already. One of the boys picks up his guitar. Wagon Wheel is the first song he plays.

That song came with me to Uganda... Sudan... Colombia... Guatemala... Jerusalem. "Points South" of all that. Now Boston. So did the guitar. And so did the boy.

***

Katherine's birthday party. Budding friendship, united by parallel narratives which---defying all laws of geometry---intersect as they unravel. The kind of friendship that fills your sails with gratitude, that makes you feel like the universe can wink simply by putting someone in your path. Her friend brought his guitar. Barenaked Ladies. The Beatles. Leaving on a jet plane. Hallelujah, Jeff Buckley.

And then, inevitably, Wagon Wheel. A room full of people singing the words along. The universe winked extra pointedly that night, to make sure I knew I was home.

***

My love for the song is immaterial. This is not the kind of song that one feels was written for her. I have never been to Johnson City, Tennessee, never picked a banjo. This is not a lyrical attachment. Rather, Wagon Wheel is my clue to pay attention. It is the way that I know that, even if I am trudging through the mud right now, somewhere out there the universe is winking. It is the music that plays, almost invisibly, to make sure that I am listening.

Live to Eat

My mom used to say that there are two types of people, with a very important distinction to be made between them. There are those who eat to live and those who live to eat. We, as a family, have always fallen into the latter category. Growing up, dinnertime was serious business. We gathered night after night, with a properly set table, a square meal, and post-dinner coffee (for the adults, of course). Friends who joined us were always amazed that we didn’t just eat and run, but seemingly enjoyed the process. At the top of her game, my mom was a great cook. We have the photographic evidence from birthdays past to suggest she was capable of extraordinary baking feats (homemade Big Bird cakes, for instance) and family members talk about the elegant dinner parties my mom threw when my parents were first married, but really, her specialty ran closer to the classics---the dishes that don’t require a recipe. Our cousin summed this up perfectly, joking that, “A recipe calls for an egg and Janice uses a marshmallow.” Pot roast, linguini and clam sauce, a perfect spiral ham, roasted chicken, escarole and beans, Sunday sauce: this was my mom’s food. Unfussy, with no pretenses---the kind of food that invited you to stay awhile.  She went to the public market in Rochester, not because it was trendy to eat seasonal and local, but because it was cheaper. “Everything’s a dollar!” she would exclaim, arms full of tomatoes, cucumbers, and romaine lettuce in the summer. As we grew up, and inevitably thought we knew everything, my sisters and I rolled our eyes at the predictability of her cooking. If she hosted a brunch, you were guaranteed an egg strata, ham, and a make-ahead French toast casserole. For summer barbeques by the pool, you could count on potato salad, macaroni salad with tuna, and a huge bowl of melon.

My mom was the only person I knew who could pull together a meal for 15 with no advance notice. She kept a bag or two of chips in the pantry, and veggies, dips and cheese in the fridge, ready to be pulled out on a moment’s notice if friends or family swung by unannounced. One Christmas not too long ago, our group doubled hours before the beef tenderloin, double baked potatoes, and salad were to hit the table, and I can tell you definitively that we still had leftovers. To this day, if you ask a family member or friend about my mom’s cooking, they will most certainly tell you about their favorite dish, but more importantly, about the memories that the food conjures. Sara will tell you about coming over on Thanksgiving or Christmas and digging the remaining spinach dip out of the bread bowl that my mom saved just for her. She’ll tell you how even with a house full of people, my mom would stop and really talk to her. My friend Meg will tell you about the taco turkey chili my mom had waiting for us on several occasions, when we sought refuge in Rochester after a particularly long week of college. She’ll tell you how my mom always made her feel at home, even in the handful of times she was there. Nikki will most definitely tell you about my mom’s clam sauce, and how she didn’t even need to ask for it when she came to Rochester. It was waiting, along with a pot of coffee after dinner, to give us all an excuse to sit and chat even longer. For me, it’s zucchini sautéed in tomatoes (with a heaping scoop of parmesan) and sausage and potatoes; the food that reminds me of sitting at the table on a Tuesday night---in other words, the ordinary food. It's my mom's salad, generously dressed with oil, red wine vinegar and Marie's blue cheese dressing, begging to be eaten directly out of the bowl. It's the recipes that also remind me so much of my grandma: the pizzelles made at Christmas time and the Easter bread---laced with anise and lightly frosted---that my mom hand delivered to eagerly waiting friends and family each year.

As the years passed, my mom’s enthusiasm for cooking waned. On more than one occasion in recent years, my mom and dad were known to have toast for dinner. “You can’t eat toast for dinner!” my sisters and I argued, but my mom didn’t care. She told us that after forty years of marriage, she was done cooking---except for Sunday dinners and holidays, of course. My sister and brother-in-law took over Thanksgiving hosting duties in the past few years, but as we realized this year, my mom was still the heart and soul of the operation. This was the first year my mom didn’t buy the turkey and bring it over on Wednesday night, completely dressed, with explicit directions about timing and temperatures. This was the first year she didn’t make her mashed potatoes---made ahead of time and frozen (controversial until you actually taste said potatoes)---her stuffing or her butternut squash. This was the first year she didn’t save the wishbone from the turkey, to make a wish on. And so this year we did the only thing we knew how to do without her: we made her food. My sisters and cousins spent the weekend before Thanksgiving mashing forty pounds of potatoes and wrangling with a number of unyielding squash.  Weeks before Thanksgiving, we panicked, not remembering the recipe for my mom’s stuffing. Katie, in Australia, came to the rescue. My mom’s stuffing has been a mainstay in her Australian Thanksgiving for years; her friends actually refer to it as Mrs. Brady’s stuffing. We sat down for Thanksgiving dinner, surrounded by my mom’s food and the family and friends who have sustained us over the last year. A close family friend said grace and lit a candle for my mom. Danielle lost both her parents in the last decade, and told us it was my mom who allowed her to appreciate Thanksgiving again.

My mom’s legacy is everywhere, but perhaps nowhere as clearly as at the dinner table. Whether it’s on fine china at Thanksgiving or pizza on paper plates, we continue to break bread together, sharing our food and our stories as we always have. It’s not just food, after all, it’s family.

Gaia & Me

Two weeks have passed. My best friend suggested me to try to put my sorrow into words. I am still not sure this is a good idea---I opened this word document and the white page was staring at me with this blank and ominous look. CLOSE ME. GO BACK TO YOUR COUCH. Some time ago I wrote Elisabeth and Miya and said I couldn’t handle a new piece for my column. I lost a family member on November 10^th, my beloved yellow Labrador Gaia. After 11 years and 4 months together in this world, she is no longer with me. I have been feeling too empty to do anything but work. I still can’t think of much more. I go to the supermarket---that’s a big thing!---I go out for walks over the weekend, and every morning I drive to Milan to edit new pages of some book and discuss publishing options with my boss. I do my best at the office---I smile, break jokes, try to concentrate. And when I cross the exit doors in the evening, tears start to stream down my face. I am going home, yes, but my home is empty now. No hugs. No kisses on that big black nose. The immensity of this loss literally broke my heart. Elisabeth sent me two pieces written by Leigh Anna Thompson on The Equals Record some time ago. I could barely read Leigh Anna’s articles, so I did not finish the story of her loss of Max and Samus. It was too painful, too real and moving. But the few words I was able to read helped me to realize a very important thing---I AM NOT ALONE. There are many other people who consider animals our best companions and cry the most burning tears when our babies leave us.

Because Gaia was my happy baby. I still remember the first drive home in the car with her. I wanted to hold her in my arms, but my two-month-old yellow lab was already too playful to stay still. She spent her first night sleeping close to my bed. She was not alone, she had a new family, who was ready to give her all the love in this world.

I fell in love with her sooner than she fell in love with me. It’s not easy to share my feelings in a language that is not my native one, but my love was pure, wholehearted. She was the first very innocent being in my life. No words were needed, only positive things were shared. Long walks, relaxation, playing, hugs, vacations, afternoons on the couch, dinners with her staring at me and craving for food. And now all the gestures and habits, those little things that have made me happy for so long, are gone.

I was on vacation with my husband (Halloween weekend) in the south of Italy when my mom texted me. I HAVE SOMETHING IMPORTANT TO TELL YOU, CAN I CALL? I understood right away. Yes, mothers of dogs have the sixth sense, too. Mamma told me Gaia had a severe internal bleeding, and there was an 80% chance she wasn’t going to survive the night. Dany and I ran back to the hotel, picked our luggage. My wonderful husband drove all night, 9 hours straight, while I couldn’t stop crying. I felt panic. Pure and simple panic. Time was running, and there was an entire country to cross from South to North. 600 miles. I arrived at the animal clinic Sunday morning at 7 AM. I knew my Gaia was inside there, and I wanted to see her. The vet suggested me to give her a few more hours and see if she would recover. The emotion of seeing me could be dangerous. I was confused. Just a few hours before they said she was dying, and now she seemed to feel better? I was happy and worried sick at the same time. So I waited, my heart full of mixed feelings. Could she survive? Could she come back home, perhaps? And she did. My Gaia was so strong to recover in the space of a few hours. Someone heard my prayers. OK, she was weak, had to take medicines, and have a CAT scan. But in the meantime, she could come home with me and rest. On Monday, the CAT scan broke my dreams once again---the liver was in a terminal condition. Tumor? Leukemia? Still a few days and the results of the tests would come. But at the same time, given her state, few days seemed to be all we had left.

I am a copy editor. The good thing about my job is that I can work from home, too, if I need. And how could I even think of going to the office when my Gaia apparently had such a short time left? So I sat close to her in the living room for the following days, wondering for how long the situation would last, and hoping the answer was forever. It was a long week of tears and hope, days when I couldn’t eat or sleep. Gaia did not seem to feel pain, she was weak, and very sweet. She was all hugs and kisses. She must have thought I was going nuts, breaking into tears every now and then.

On Saturday morning, November 10^th, it was Gaia who told me that she couldn’t resist anymore. I knew it. I just felt that Friday night was the last night. So in the morning I looked into her eyes, and she was asking me to let her go. I knew what I had to do. I had discussed it with my family and we did not want her to suffer, so we called the vet. I don’t want to share her last hours. They were the worst of my life. I wanted to hold her little and innocent soul---if I couldn’t keep her body with us, her soul had to remain with me forever. I could not stand or talk. I wanted to live forever in those hours. I prayed to God. And then I prayed the Sun, and the Moon, asking them to stop. Why not? Please, please, please, I need more time. And I squeezed my eyes as if this could make my prayers sound more pure. I had recently read Mitch Albom’s “The Time Keeper”. So I asked to become Father Time, to have an hourglass in my hands and be able to stop the time. But it didn’t work.

So now I am alone. Gaia lives in my heart. She is still in the house somehow---my mother still worries to keep the food out of her reach. She tells me she expects to see Gaia sleeping on her couch, or stealing an apple in the kitchen. But no, she is gone.

11 years and 4 months. In this time I graduated, I got my masters degree, I went to America and taught Italian for 3 years (oh, 3 years flying back to Italy every chance I got to make up for the time we were losing), I got married, and I started a new career in publishing. Eleven years of big changes, with my best friend/sister/daughter/companion Gaia always in our big family house, filling it with her presence. Always here close to us. Man, all those moments I gave for granted. Is it possible to have no regrets at all? I don’t think so, but I’m sure my girl was happy. She was a human, in a family of humans. And she was the most cheerful and spontaneous and loyal in the big house.

Many friends, dogs’ parents like me, told me she must be in some other place now, happy and not feeling any pain. I believe this is true, and feel her presence in the backyard when I open the windows in the morning. I believe right now she is here in my living room, in that corner where she used to sit. She is looking at me with those big sweet hazelnut eyes. She smiles. This gives me solace, for a while. And then I suddenly break, I cry like a baby because I miss her so badly. I physically miss her, I miss the fact that every day she was teaching me something new and precious.

And I find myself wondering if my sorrow will ever take another shape, the shape of the Sun, or the Moon maybe? The Sun will shine, warming me with her memory every day. And the Moon will shine, too, watching over me while I sleep and dream---I dream of her with me in the old days, and I dream of the new days that will come, in some other place, space and time.

I love you, Gaia.

Thank you all for reading this.