This time last year, I was in Wyoming terrorizing cattle, watching grasshoppers pop out of the tall grass by the dozens, running in light snow to watch for golden eagles on the hills. What a world away it seems; how things have changed. This year I have not left New York state. I have barely written (but I plan to start again), with the emotional/physical/mental turmoil this pandemic and other family issues have caused. It’s been a hard year for everyone I know and strange for me to be back in my childhood home although I’m thankful to be able to spend more time with my family.
But I’ve discovered interesting nooks closer to the place I grew up—a cemetery with the graves of Revolutionary War veterans, local ponds and woods full of deer and chipmunks, another lone gravestone with the name of one of the founding members of the town carved into it hidden behind a suburban strip mall. This is how I really like to get to know a place—that stumble across an unexpected discovery, those little trails that lead off into who knows where. Places and creatures that may have always been there but went unnoted. There are wild turkeys roaming around the suburban developments and woodpeckers everywhere I turn. There are greenways to bike and local historical areas that can’t be found online. There are so many things I don’t know about this place and it’s a lovely surprise.


Here, black crickets invade the house every night. The mosquitoes are finally dying out now that it’s gotten chillier. The end of the growing season is still giving us carrots, figs, raspberries, and sunchokes, and the blue jays and cardinals have discovered the birdseed I put out for them so they wake me up every morning (but the squirrels have discovered it too). The jays and squirrels make a ruckus with all the nuts and acorns they’re eating from the trees. I, like everyone else, have been baking like crazy (sourdough, focaccia, biscuits, cookies, cakes, danishes…) so I’m already on banana bread #14 this year (this year’s banana bread production has been more than the last 30 years combined!) but I just want to say that my recipe has been perfected—moist and light and perfect toasted with butter for days after.



I’ve finally started reading again; there are so many books that have come out that I’m excited about. I’ve just finished C Pam Zhang’s How Much of These Hills Is Gold—beautifully written and melodic in its language, a fascinating reinvention of the American West during the gold rush era told through the eyes of an Asian American girl. I also read More Miracle Than Bird by Alice Miller, which introduced me to the life of Georgia Hyde-Lees, the woman who eventually married W.B. Yeats and began automatic writing to hold their marriage together. There was quite a bit of drama in those days! This was a pretty surprising and interesting read, considering I didn’t know anything about her or about W.B. Yeats’s personal life previously (and interest in the occult). Reading Aimee Bender’s newest book next and Sanmao’s Stories of the Sahara, which has finally been translated from the Chinese! I’ve been recommended Sanmao’s writing several times now, including from the fisherman I met on that island a couple years ago (has it really been two years since Taiwan and my China research trip?!) plus I LOVE the desert and desert stories so I’m really excited to start it. Hoping that all this reading will inspire me to work on my novel!