Cloud Cuckoo Land, which instantly became one of my favorite novels when I read it in October, is a layered, moving story about the power of stories:

“ ‘I know why those librarians read the old stories to you,’ Rex says. ‘Because if it’s told well enough, for as long as the story lasts, you get to slip the trap.’ ”

What’s the trap?

I’ve been thinking a lot about joy (and the lack of it) lately. In some ways, 2021 has felt harder than 2020. And yet . . .

I have mixed feelings about writing fiction. First, I have no formal training, other than a class I took as an undergraduate in college 40 years ago. Second, I understand non-fiction, which is journalism adjacent. Having been a PR person for decades, I feel comfortable with reportage, commentary, essays. Third, I feel grounded with non-fiction, because when I write an essay my job is to elucidate as clearly as I can a set of real facts and feelings on a specific timeline. Finding a jewel of clear truth while cutting away everything that dims it is a great pleasure as a writer.

But fiction? You make up absolutely everything. Will I ever feel like I’m any good at this??

I’ve written so much about loss – mostly because I’m trying to harvest the meaning of the most powerful experiences in my life. Some of my losses were visceral surprises, some echoed inside and opened ancient wounds. It’s those doubly powerful losses I had in mind as I wrote an essay called “A Brutal and Sacred Gift.” Here are the first few paragraphs…

In May I took my first real vacation since lockdown started in March 2020. I was in beautiful Park City with two dear friends, all of us vaccinated, floating in the hot tub after a hike, when I felt something strange, vaguely familiar and delicious.

Bear with me. I am now going to tell you a long, circuitous story with no clear ending. It’s about becoming “a writer.”

It was right around my 45th birthday (April 2008), that one of my BFFs took me for a birthday tarot reading with a guy named Howard, who studied the cards he laid out for me and said, “Your job is soul-destroying.”

“Why yes, Howard,” I said, trying not to laugh. ”It IS.”

Afterwards my friend asked me what I’d do if I left my career. A surprising answer bubbled up. “Well, I always thought I might write my memoir.” I think I first discarded that thought in college, but a few decades later I shrugged and thought, “Why not?”