essays

It’s a new year. Here come our new hopes, new projects, new obligations. It’s a time of new beginnings and of endings too. I’m going to take a hiatus from writing this blog, so this is an ending of sorts. But before I leave you I thought I’d share the first chapter of Lost and Found, the novel I’ve been working on since spring of 2021.

When I read Mohsin’s Hamid’s “By the Book” interview in The New York Times, I was especially comforted to see him admit to having a pile of books that he wished “to intend to read” but would never read. So I’m not the only one?

I am not sure if I read more books than I did not read in 2022, which is to say that I’ve purchased more books this year than I dare to count. Have I read more than half of them? I have no idea.

More or less since 2016, I’ve had a tough time following the news. It got even worse in 2020. I’ve managed the chaos and destruction in the world the way people manage Tinder – swiping left to ignore all the darkness, swiping right to focus on the beauty. There is a lot of darkness, but there is still so much beauty in our world.

But I was watching Joseph Campbell’s Power of Myth interviews with Bill Moyers a couple of weeks ago. In the second episode Campbell talked about the idea of embracing all of it. All of reality. All of the beauty and all of the darkness.

Can I do that?

A few weeks ago my manicurist said to me, “I can’t imagine you getting angry.”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

When I had my last day job, at a big multi-national PR agency serving a big multi-national client, there was almost never a moment when I was NOT angry. I wrote a whole essay about those years: Leaving the Bitch Behind.

The first of Stephen King’s 22 Lessons on Writing is this: “Stop watching television. Instead, read as much as possible.” Oh dear. I’m sorry Stephen. I watch TV every night. Mea culpa.

My sister and I used to talk about how we managed our media diet. There are not enough hours in the day to read, watch and listen to all the podcasts, magazines, books, music, movies and TV that one wants to, let alone all of the content that one should get to. How does a writer who needs to read as much as possible budget her media time?

I am a lifelong music lover (and sometimes a singer too). I studied and adore opera, I throw myself into the blues, I grew up on The Eagles, James Taylor, Van Halen and Willie Nelson. But last year, on August 13, to be exact, I found BTS. I was at Oracle Park for post-baseball Fireworks Night. When BTS’s Dynamite played over gorgeous bursts of sparkling color, I was filled with transcendent joy, an essential nutrient that had been absent for far too long in 2020 and 2021.

After that night at the ballpark I couldn’t let go of the pure and powerful happy feeling that song gave me. So I downloaded a BTS playlist…