lately

lately, I’ve been into the quiet life. a glass of wine on the porch. reading about life on a northern farm with plenty of soft light and sprinkles. listening to the radio rather than absorbing all the white noise on a front page through stinging eyes; rather, letting it take on the appropriate medium, tuning in & out as need be.

lately, I’ve been buying swathes of leafy greens, leaving the kitchen door open to let in an early spring as I wash & dry and sauté them, and eating them with cold roast chicken and crusty bread. I’ve remembered cooking in new york, where I shopped at farmer’s markets and took long walks and braised all those pretty vegetables in copious amounts of olive oil–and that’s about it. and I relished the aloneness, the quietude, the simplicity of my small life in that big city.

lately, I’ve been contemplating the serenity of cats, and burying myself in books, and trying, mostly, to be as peaceful and full of grace and graciousness as possible.

molly yeh / paris review

lately

beets! lately I have been into beets. shaved some raw chioggias into a salad with kale, dried fruit + nuts, crumbled sharp cheddar & a mustardy vinaigrette. a wintry assemblage–sharp, rich and jewel-toned.

Didion! this piece celebrating her and her recent collaborator/co-conspirator, Celine, is wonderful. (these slingbacks remind me of Didion’s Stingray).

Didion has always been both an artist and a muse. I admit that I, too, have wistfully admired her elegant little packing list.

when I lived in New York years ago, and was young and sylphlike, I wore jersey sweatshirts, a-line skirts and flats almost exclusively, and tromped about the respective Villages even though I lived in Harlem.

when I moved to New York, not from it, my sister gave me a copy of this brilliant essay. it is perfect, applicable to both falling in and out of love with a city.
Didion is a master of writing on the self, about the things we know, the observable and observed, and the things we can only feel.

I wrote more in New York. I wrote about the sun & air on a certain day, a certain street. about eating bagels on stoops, funny old philosophers wandering the Columbia campus, pizza and fruit stands.

I wrote about how by exploring a bright, odorous, loud, difficult, beautiful, ugly, exciting city, I was exploring the self.