Traffic Lights and Full Stops

This poor little blog has come to a full stop. I miss it and I miss you. I gave a lecture on Woolf on October 21 at the New York Public Library. On October 22, we closed on a house. On October 27^th we moved. We hung pictures during the snow days that followed the Boxing Day blizzard. We are all still tired, still disoriented, loving our new house and our new community, but reeling from the loss of friends and neighbors in Jersey City.

It’s true, Jersey City is just thirty minutes away, but I lost three great women friends whom I would see a couple times a week, just in passing. About twice a week, I would walk my dog in the mornings and would often see Kadee taking her kids to school. Usually, I didn’t even bother to flag her down—I had just bid my kids good-bye, she was in her last few moments of the morning with them, she would have two in tow, I had my elderly dog and often, a poop bag. It’s hard to imagine that luxury now. Then, I could count on seeing Laura in the mornings when I dropped the kids off at school or, more often, in the late afternoons, as we passed her apartment on the way home. And checking to see if Lizzie was home—and to see if she looked like she wanted us to bug her—was a nightly ritual for the girls and me. These are big losses.

Having enough room, having a proper study of my own with a door are big gains and we love the community.

In any case, to re-ignite this blog, I bring you the link to my October lecture, available here and on the NYPL website.