in the face of it all I have been given little gifts

drowning in what the f*ck-isms...

Jun 11, 2026

Bryon on Hand, 1980, lithography. David Hockney

AI free zone, button created by Beth Spencer, enhanced by me. Yes, 2 humans!

Hi-Hi,

I have been given 3 little gifts.

For many years I have loved this poem, Bike Ride with Older Boys, by Laura Kasischke. I’ve loved it because in it I see my younger self, my girlfriends, my family, all vulnerable girls who yearn. The poem is about a time the speaker, as a girl, did not go alone on a bike ride with older boys, and what might have happened had she gone. The possibility of pain, yes, but also the possibility of joy.

The bike ride could have been crushing… “When I stand up again, there are bits of glass and gravel ground into my knees.” Or it could have been wonderful… “Two cute and older boys pedaling beside me—respectful, awed.”

The first, with glass and gravel, feels hopeless. The second, with respect and awe, feels, well, naive. By not going the narrator gets to live in the in-between. It’s like Schrödinger’s bike ride! Is the ride a tragedy or a triumph? It’s both. That’s the gift. We must hold possibilities for multiple outcomes. Otherwise we’re only naive or hopeless. I choose to be both experienced and hopeful.

Do click this link and read the entire poem. Here is the stanza which I love:

I have been given a little gift—
something sweet
and inexpensive, something
I never worked or asked or said
thank you for, most
days not aware
of what I have been given, or what I missed—

because it's that, too, isn't it?

…

Another little gift?

My friend Jennifer Louden recently wrote about “shadow boxing with depression” and, as I told her, each time we acknowledge our private struggles publicly, as Jen so generously does, we make room for someone else to shed a little shame about their own dark wing of anxiety or depression or anger. We are all sometimes crestfallen.

I too occasionally crouch beneath a black wing. It is made doubly hard because the source of my situational depression is something about which I don’t have the freedom to speak. How many of us are unable to talk about something that deeply saddens us, over which we have no power to affect change? What does that do to us sensitive and creative people who use our words to excavate and exorcise our sorrows? The pain stays in the dark, gathering shame like dust. If this describes you at all, I see you and I feel you and I click my Wonder Woman power bracelets with yours.

…

Another little gift?

When I was a small girl, my Aunt Carole told me daisies were her favorite flowers. Knowledge in hand, I always nipped daisies from the neighborhood to bring to her. Now when I see daisies, I think of Aunt Carole, who I deeply love, and who loves me right back, which brings me a zing of pleasure.

Do you know the favorite flower of a loved one? I feel like this is knowledge we should seek, right? That way we can feel them near as we traipse around our world. I don’t encourage stealing them from your neighbors’ gardens… but you can certainly recognize your person in their little flowery faces.

What gifts have you been given lately?

read:

I am currently reading Elizabeth Strout’s novel, THE THINGS WE NEVER SAY, and I am loving it. I love the warm bosom of the omniscient narrator. I trust this speaker. I feel well taken care of. I also feel seen in the world of main character Artie Dam’s low-grade depression. (You might say highly activated depression, but I disagree.) I love the way we learn that small gestures of kindness can be deeply meaningful.

When one day Artie Dam, a teacher, waves hello, something so simple, to a student, Rhonda Lazarre who is troubled by bullying, his small act changes everything. The student believes that this gesture turned her toward becoming a minister.

…as things happen, she carried with her that memory and connected it to the future, and it was a a good future for her; she understood more and more as she got older that she had helped people, people like she had been, awkward, scared, lonely, and people also like the other girls in her class had been, popular and pretty and suffering —as she found out through her career—from terrible pains and fears of their own.
…
So blind we humans are—so blind. To each other and to ourselves, moving through life as though through shadows, putting out a hand in the dark and thinking we have touched someone. And maybe we have, as Artie did with Rhonda Lazarre that day. But mostly we travel through life unsighted, grasping only the smallest details of one another’s selves, including our own. Thinking all the while that we can see.

In my workshops, particularly when I’m working with memoirists, I often say “Pain has long arms.” Which I absolutely stand by. But I also am more and more coming to understand that kindness has longer arms. The strongest spell against unhappiness is to move through the day-to-day in a way that preempts future regrets — live daily with integrity, with humility, with wholeheartedness.

Of course George Saunders has something to say on exactly this subject:

At the end of my life, I know I won’t be wishing I’d held more back, been less effusive, more often stood on ceremony, forgiven less, spent more days oblivious to the secret wishes and fears of the people around me.

…

At times Strout’s novel is like sitting through a Unitarian Universalist sermon. I’m picking up what she is putting down! Yet, it also has light and bright scenes. Laughter so immense character’s have mascara running down their cheeks. Rude dinner parties, lots of love, cheeky children, and ‘oh my’ tragedies, all written in the signature translucent prose of Elizabeth Strout.

I’m in. In fact, I’m so in I want to go back and read everything she’s ever written. Want to join?

Opportunities to engage in the r.w.e. community:

Mentor Book Group— in which we read memoirs, personal growth books, fiction and discuss what we might like to adopt in our own “work-in-progress” lives. ORBITAL, by Samantha Harvey will be our June book, meeting on 28 June at 9a pacific time. Love to have you join us.

If you’d like to discuss books with me and a group of smart and lively readers, the r.w.e. book group selection for June is ACCIDENTAL DEVOTIONS and Kelli Russell Agodon will be joining us to discuss her poems on Sunday, 21 June, at 9a pacific time. She is a-mazing and you should not miss! Our July selection is THE THINGS WE NEVER SAY, by Elizabeth Strout. We will meet Sunday, 12 July, also at 9a pacific time on zoom. Want to join in?

The book groups are a perk for paid subscribers. I’d love to get to know you better:

Thank you in advance for sharing your love!

write:

I feel so lucky to love what I do! I just taught my favorite class on Reading with a Writer’s Eye. Such a joy to be in a zoom room with so many smart writers and readers and Stephanie Sprenger who is the brains and energy behind THE PAUSE, A Creative Community for Midlife Women.

Most of us came to writing because we love to read. We love the feeling of being pulled completely out of our world and into someone else’s. And we’ve probably also wondered - how do they do that? Well, writers make a lot of decisions! Reading with a writer’s eye means studying the choices writers make to create that kind of immersive, magnetic storytelling. Then we figure out what to borrow for our own work.

Vladamir Nabokov says:

“there is no reading, there is only rereading,”

It’s in rereading that we can most effectively appreciate and notice the craft of a piece of writing. Read once for immersion, the next read is for deconstructing and understanding craft.

Here are a few of the tips I gave to the group for ways you can capitalize upon your reading to enhance your writing:

What do you make of the first sentence? Does it create a bit of imbalance? Does it tip you forward into the story? Do your first sentences make a reader lean forward? Here are a few samples:

I like to think I know what death is. Jessamyn Ward
We didn’t always live on Mango St. Sandra Cisneros
Who’s there? Hamlet, Shakespeare

How close are we to the events? And, to what effect? How do we decide the best place from which to tell our story?

distant past retold with reflection, haunting
recent past, more immediate, perhaps searing

Does the story achieve another purpose besides entertainment? Tolstoy says art conveys emotion from one man’s heart to another. E. Annie Proux says:

“…in the short story there lingers a faint sense of example, a trimmed, useful tautness implying a function for the reader beyond entertainment… a nugget of embedded truth.”

Embedded truth is in all good writing. Where is the embedded truth? Where do you feel recognized? Where do you feel things? Note those moments in your reading journal or in the margins of the book.

Circle all the verbs! How are they conveying meaning? Are they fresh?
Does sentence length vary and carry emotion?
Does the ending close a door and open a window? Do your endings leave room for possibility or tie everything up like a sitcom?

I wanted to discuss ways in which we can use our reading to launch ourselves into new writing by asking the right questions and developing our own prompts. But, alas, we ran out of time.

If this discussion sounds like something you might benefit from, if you have a bit of sadness from missing out, don’t worry. Shoot me an email and I’ll arrange another round! I’d love to continue the conversation and learn more!

…

To free up your writing, to explore new ideas, to jump in with both feet, I’m offering:

shoot me a note quick! I’ve just one lane left!

eat:

It’s meant to be catastrophically hot this weekend.

Thank goodness we’ve reserved space at the coast—where I plan on making this recipe from my archives:

Olive Oil Poached Halibut Nuggets w/Garlic and Mint

1lb halibut fillet, cut into 1-inch cubes
¼ t sea salt, more to taste
freshly ground black pepper
4T extra virgin olive oil
1 small rosemary sprig
1/2 t dried mint
2 garlic cloves, minced
Fresh lemon juice, to taste
Chopped fresh mint, for garnish

Season halibut all over with salt and pepper. In med skillet, like kids sharing a small bedroom the nuggets touch shoulders with no room to spare, heat the olive oil. Add fish, rosemary and dried mint. Let cook slowly until fish begins to turn opaque, about 3 minutes.
Stir in garlic and 1¼ teaspoon each of salt and pepper, and cook until garlic is fragrant and fish is just cooked through, another 3 minutes or so. The heat should be low enough so as not to brown the garlic or fish but high enough to gently cook everything; the cooking time will vary with your stove.
Taste for seasoning, add a drizzle of lemon juice. Stir in the fresh mint and serve, using a slotted spoon if you want to leave behind the flavorful poaching oil, though I have no idea why you would. It’s delicious over couscous or potatoes.

Yield: 3 servings.

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Stanley, in need of a bang trim: