A week ago, I had some stitches put in my ankle after my dermatologist removed a mole that was headed in the wrong direction. Getting the stitches was pretty painless, and even as the numbness wore off, I was fine. After a few days, though, I started to feel some annoyance with my bandaged ankle. There was an aggravating pulling sensation with any amount of walking. The lip of my sneakers kept rubbing against my Steri-Strips. I had to make careful modifications in…

On Friday, I saw the news that poet Louise Glück had passed away. Food writer Jeff Gordinier wrote in an Instagram post that her collection of poems, The Wild Iris, is “a book that can save your life.” Gordinier noted that her work had been on his mind recently, even before the news of her passing reached him. It hadn’t occurred to me to turn to Glück’s poems over the course of this heartbreaking past week. But I should have, and since Friday,…

The start of fall has been, as the start of fall usually is, pretty busy. I’m not feeling as overwhelmed as I was over the summer, which is a good thing. Yet having more capacity means that I’m doing more. The days fly by; I blinked, and September was gone. With lots of autumnal colds and viruses going around, some of my evening plans got canceled this past week. I had a bunch of nights at home. I told myself that I’d use…

New York City got a lot of rain on Friday. It had actually been raining all week, so when I woke up to another drizzly morning, I was disappointed but not surprised. Surprises came later that day. The rain became so heavy that our governor had to declare a brief state of emergency. Many trains were suspended. I saw videos on Instagram of flooded buses, half-submerged cars, and even an apparent whirlpool in Park Slope. I was supposed to go over to a…

When I traveled this past summer, I spent just over half the time on my own, the other half with my oldest friend. She is one of the most efficient planners I know. She’d taken care of dinner plans and tickets to museums months in advance. I was so impressed. I’m comically last minute when it comes to travel, which is very different from how I am in my day-to-day life. All this said, it’s impossible to travel without at least a little…

I saw something on social media recently, the source of which I’m now forgetting, that suggested ending the day with a short list of what’s not wrong. I sort of laughed when I first read it—as far as evaluation goes, “not wrong” seemed like setting the bar low. The more I thought about it, though, the more I liked it. Listen, I love the idea of gratitude journaling and gratitude lists. And I’ve tried many times to create a habit of making them…

I’ve been thinking about getting back to things. We read so much about starting something new. And while it’s a brave, character-building experience to step into the unknown, there’s something equally courageous about returning to something that we’ve become separated from. I don’t go to a gym, run, jog, or cycle. Because I live in a walkable neighborhood and city, I do walk a fair bit on my way from one place to another. Yet my walking becomes considerably less when it’s cold…