Visiting the University of Vermont today with four high school senior girls and one sixth grader, our tour guide informed us he grew up in Brooklyn and had hardly been outside before he enrolled at UVM. My gaggle of girls and I looked at each other in disbelief. The poor soul.

We may not have represented the highest SAT scores in the room, but at least the girls know the importance of matching footwear with the weather.

Here’s a few lines from the novel I’m reading, suitable for craft of fiction advice:

Detail established truth. The color of the dog. Without detail, truth was a metaphorically unstable idea: too general, too big….

– Melanie Finn, The Gloaming

Burlington, Vermont

In the afterword of her late husband’s memoir, When Breath Becomes Air, Lucy Kalanithi writes about retreating into the meat of her marriage after his cancer diagnosis, seeking succor. In different ways, I see my own children gathering strength from friendships, art, running – all creative, growing activities, rather than comfort in destructive habits. Early this morning, I found myself pulling the predawn darkness around me, the familiar patterns of wood stove kindling, coffee grinding, and reading.

I was also thinking of my brother and his insistence that free will and responsibility are central human tenets. Or, I might rephrase, small lights as a way out of the darkness.

“…Have you done anything good? Anything beautiful? Have you created anything? Music? Art? Have you made anything better? Even in a small way? A small light in this dark world? Have you even been happy?”

She throws the lit nub of the cigarette out the window. “You should ask yourself what the hell you think you’re here for.”

– Melanie Finn, The Gloaming

Burlington, Vermont