FSOFD (fiction snippet of the day). I REPEAT: FICTION.


He was nothing if not meticulous about his brand, careful not to publicly share the Fitzgerald life he'd created in the aftermath of his failed marriage. Honing his craft. Lemonade from lemons. Devoted father. Imminently reasonable. Self-assured. Mirth man. In this way, he cast himself as the hero to his ex's antiheroine, cementing an unstated narrative that the townsfolk wanted to believe. For they only had one hand with which to throw stones; the other was busy high fiving him.

She had a bigger problem. She didn't know her place. For starters, she refused to remain silent, as instructed. Selfish, ambitious, not buying it. Unsympathetic on a good day. And worse: happy most of the time.

This dichotomy served everyone involved (and not).

The unscripted contretemps--ab initio and post finem—of the formerly connubial, however, revealed a less delineated tale.

As if long-term marriages were complicated by ... reality.

Mary Oliver fans will recognize the title of this post as the closing line of her acclaimed poem, The Summer Day. 

As in ... 

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Her new collection, Felicity, is out now, just in time for her 80th birthday. 

Good company.

​Thoroughly enjoyed an hour with Oliver and Krista Tippett this week. Wanted to share. 

Listen here: 
http://www.onbeing.org/program/mary-oliver-listening-to-the-world/7267

When we get out of the water in Bolinas, post-surf session—salt water bath writ large—I like to go to the Coast Cafe. I found Max Ehrmann's framed prose poem* in the bathroom there yesterday, having followed the buoys and gold inlaid frog footprints (most charming). It was enough to send me back out to the car for my camera. That the flash appears just above the word "blind" is divine intervention. I can't help but feel it was a message/mitzvah/signpost sent directly to me from the ON-RAMP TO 50.


* Historical note: Desiderata was actually written in 1927. The footer, which has a convoluted back story, is incorrect but adds to the poem's lore.

And letting go ... In the fifth year, she took it upon herself to take down the photos from her marriage that no longer belonged on the bathroom wall. Smiling couple shots with her ex. Subjects who had long since vanished from her life. Propinquity obsolete, as it were. She thought keeping the photos up would be good for the kids. To let them know that although the chapter is closed, memories DID happen and they WERE (usually something approximating) good. Enduring even. She changed her mind after her ex-husband's new partner redecorated and refurnished his house, top-to-bottom inside and out, including new photos that embraced the new. The now. The kids (who'd become a teenage troika), it turned out, didn't miss the old shots so much as they were concerned with how they looked in the updated images, which, the mother was quite sure, was happy. Then and now.


Postscript. New wall below.