Month: January 2012

• January 25, 2012

  ‘Or some contrivance awkwardly suitable for the unpleasantly awkward occasion’

  Sometimes it goes: once lips to cheek. Sometimes it goes: twice, back and forth, slowly or swiftly. Occasionally, it goes three times. The pressure is also important. So is the touch. Firm or light. Moist or dry. Cheek or air or half-both. As intimacy grows, the lips may get closer or the kisses, on cheeks,…
• January 24, 2012

  The mystery of the pigeons, the tranquility of the birdsong

  How many pigeons are there? I lose count every time. Each pigeon and every pigeon formation come, all come, as a surprise. I look and the formation has changed. Or I turn away, return, and–am I disappointed or reassured?–they have not changed. Or they have. My eye goes back to the places where they were,…
• January 23, 2012

  At home with Joan

  If it’s before 9 a.m. and the doorbell rings, I hurry down the stairs to get it. If it’s after 9, then I assume Joan is up and around, sitting in the kitchen, reading the New York Times as the light comes in through the front window. Upstairs in my treetop home, I loiter with my…
• January 21, 2012

  Against the fantasy of something for nothing

  (Beyond my bedroom window: the snow comes down, the pigeons sit askant, at odd angles, one here, another there as if playing with me.) — (The birds, unseen, are singing amid the gently falling snow. Pure sprightly delight.) — We have inherited a misguided public philosophy concerning the desirability of “free things.” The fantasy that,…
• January 20, 2012

  To be a modern woman: A social tragedy

  Were the fate of the modern woman to be written today, doubtless it would be cast in the genre of a social tragedy. Where once she was held in bondage, now she is free to choose: free to choose her own poison. The endings of many nineteenth and twentieth century novels bespeak a sense that the…