A friend comes for cheese sandwiches and raspberries, and we walk through the hydrangeas and across the cemetery and downtown to the Galaxy Bookshop where Garret Keizer launches his new book. The evening is illuminated with sunlight. Keizer reads well, and at the end, my hands folded over my knitting in my lap, I feel how this room of friends and strangers leans together, yoked by the intensity and compassion of his words. He thanks the audience and says drive home carefully.

Over those sweet raspberries, we’d talked about the curious threads that knot through communities, the connections between people known in segments. Likewise, we comprehend this universe in all its radiance and brutality through a smudged lens. This week, in a nearby town, an unimaginable car crash.

Lingering at the bookstore’s door, two old friends and I muse about these strange political days. One friend ventures that collective celebrations, like the recent Knicks’ win, keep us buoyant. As a writer, I’ve always leaned into words, the shelter of creation, the force of imagination. Yet, there are realms where language no longer suffices. Nine years ago, we moved into this house. I opened the living room windows, and the perfume of roses washed through the rooms. Nine years? a friend asks. What does that feel like?

It feels like multitudes.

… Last, grateful for this nice write-up of Call It Madness in the Times Argus.