I promise I’ll stop writing about Zadie Smith soon. It’s just that I’m making my way through her book of essays right now, Dead and Alive, and with nearly every one I read, I fall more in love with her. Whenever I see prompts or ice-breakers like, “If you could hang out with any one famous person, dead or alive, who would it be?”, every person I think of I’m like, but do I really feel connected to that person? What would spending time with them actually be like? Would we have anything to say to each other?
After reading this book, I think it’d be Zadie Smith, even though I’d be super intimidated and fangirly and wouldn’t know what to talk about, and I’d make it all weird and awkward because I’m not her equal. But if I could manage to be cool — maybe we could listen to hip-hop or go dancing to break the ice and then talk — I think she would be super fun to hang out with.
She adores fiction. She adores reading it. She adores writing it. She adores “the way it lies to tell the truth.” And she believes in its ability to truly immerse us in different points of view in a way that social media and the absolute glut of online news sources do not:
[The internet] seems to be a place of diverse views but the deeper truth is it’s all taking place on the identical platforms with identical aesthetics and in the end an identical motive: profit. It’s such a narrow version of ’the real’. I just have to open Mieko Kawakami or Thackeray or Dostoevsky or Bambara and I’m in a completely alternative perspective, unsponsored, uncontrolled, unmediated by anything apart from language. It’s not an important vision of reality because two million people upvoted it. It’s important because I am communing with it and being transformed by it.
I want to read all of these people! Previous to this paragraph, she had referenced several other writers and philosophers I’ve never read in response to a question about her sharp, fresh, and natural style. All I could think was, “Where does she find the time?!”
When I got older and read philosphers like Wittgenstein and Russell and Fanon — or the essays of Virginia Woolf — it occurred to me that there are few thoughts so complex that they can’t be expressed in clear, accessible prose. It’s a discipline.
She makes me want to quit my job and spend all my time reading. I know this is not possible. So the alternative is to keep myself healthy and live a very long life, if for no other reason than to be able to read as much as possible before I die.
What an incredible year for books. Time is my biggest challenge to getting to everything I want to read. A three month sabbatical in 2025 made this glaringly obvious. Not only did I read more books in 2025 than I’ve ever read in a year (73), but I also read great books. And I mean great in multiple senses: with a capital G as in Greats of literature, great in that I loved them, and great in that my reading life was much richer for reading them.
I read a lot of beautiful writing in 2025, along with classics that are referenced so much they are part of our cultural DNA. I got hooked on the Zero to Well Read podcast, which has also enriched my reading life, and I revisited some old favorites, like A Prayer for Owen Meany and The Shipping News, which I wonder if I will ever tire of.
Our son is an English major, and I love to see his excitement when he gets deep into a work and really thinks about it. I often speed through a book and then move onto the next one without any reflection. In 2026, I’m interested in thinking more about what I read. I’m not sure what that looks like yet. Maybe writing notes after I finish. Maybe getting physical copies to mark up. I’m excited to join a local book club starting in January, so that’ll be a great way to engage more with what I read.
Some of the greatest influences in my life come from the pages of books. Settings send me on real life travels. Characters inspire or give me permission or make me laugh. Writers motivate me and send me back to my notebook.
I finished Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News again this week. I don’t know how many times I’ve read this. I’ve blogged about it multiple times. This time was just as good as all the others. Like any good book, I got something different out of it than in other readings. My first read, I was probably struck by the setting. I’d never read anything set in Newfoundland. I loved how immersive it was, both the landscape and the descriptions of the characters.
On the horizon icebergs like white prisons. The immense blue fabric of the sea, rumpled and creased.
Weather coming on. I see the spiders is lively all day and my knees is full of crackles.
Other readings, I’m sure the sense of place brought me back to the book — it’s a great winter read — but once I was in it, I appreciated the evocative language in one read.
Jack had things on his mind and talked like a rivet gun.
The humor in another.
“You’re a rotten, bitey shit!” bawled Sunshine.
The wisdom in another.
Of course you can do the job. We face up to awful things because we can’t go around them, or forget them.
In this read, what struck me was the main character, Quoyle’s, transformation. His whole life, he was unloved and outcast, a hulking freak. But didn’t want to be.
For Quoyle was a failure at loneliness, yearned to be gregarious, to know his company was a pleasure to others.
When he went north after his demon lover’s death, north to Newfoundland where his terrible ancestors were from, he found his talents. He found community who did not judge him. He found felt a sense of rightness. He found his place in the world.
Thirty-six years old and this was the first time anybody had ever said he’d done it right.
My husband and I are entering a new stage of our lives as both kids move through college. They will start their own adult lives soon, and Brian and I are thinking where we might want to end up one day. Blacksburg was an amazing place to raise our family, but neither of us feel that sense of rightness here.
On a team call once, the icebreaker was “If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?” One person looked confused and said, “Uh, where I live now. I can live anywhere in the world, so I moved to where I want to live.”
This was revelatory to me. Lately I’ve hung out with several people who feel this way about their home region. They’re proud of where they live. They have roots and community and that sense of rightness. And for the first time in however many readings of The Shipping News, I see this for Quoyle, too, and I love it for him.
Quoyle experienced moments in all colors, uttered brilliancies, paid attention to the rich sound of waves counting stones, he laughed and wept, noticed sunsets, heard music in rain…
I’m thinking differently now about where I might want to go next. I want it to feel like home.
The first time I went to Spain was 22 years ago. It was July and sweltering, and I was pregnant with our son. We went to Barcelona with a friend who grew up there. We stayed with his Dad. We ate late-night gazpacho and fresh sardines from La Rambla on his terrace. Visiting a friend who was from Barcelona, who shared with us his favorite childhood pastries and his everyday meals and who welcomed us into his home, was one of the most magical travel experiences we’ve had.
Last week, I got to experience something similar, this time in cities I never knew I wanted to visit. My team at work traveled to Spain to meet up with a colleague who lives north of Madrid, and who couldn’t get away to travel. We had originally planned to meet up in Madrid, and he said, You should go to Segovia instead. It’s smaller and cheaper but has everything you want. Plus there’s an aqueduct! I can take you to good restaurants there. And you can come visit my city on your activity day and I’ll show you around!
So we went to Segovia. And his home town of Aranda de Duero. This time we were bundled up, and there were Christmas lights, and I drank all the Spanish wine my heart desired.
Segovia Aqueduct
From the airbnb where we worked, we walked a block to get to the aqueduct, then we followed the aqueduct for 5 minutes or so to the heart of the city. On our first day, after working for a few hours, we took a stroll around Segovia under a crisp November sky. The ochre colors and earthy textures of the buildings and the landscape soothed my soul. I really loved it there.
Architectural textures in SegoviaI can’t get enough of the patterns and the earthy colorsLook at that light!Patterned exteriors of buildings. So many cool patterns.
As promised, Raúl took us to his home city of Aranda de Duero, the capital of the Ribera del Duero wine region, on our activity day. Raúl drove us from Segovia in his minivan, and as we approached the city, we saw miles and miles of browned grape vines propped in neat rows above the rocky soil.
Beneath the city of Aranda de Duero is a vast network of wine cellars, or bodegas, 10-13 meters under the ground. They are everywhere. Associations called peñas, which seemed similar to Elks lodges in the US, have their own bodegas where they meet, hang out, celebrate. We visited three. The first was an underground escape room, Ribiértete, which we managed to escape after copious wine. I won’t tell you any more in case you ever decide to go.
Our escape room host, Sonia, and a porron, which folks drink from in bodegas.
The second belonged to a friend of Raúl’s who was kind enough to show us around his bodega. He swiped a key card across the panel of a large wooden door, and it opened into a stone staircase underground.
Raúl had stuffed our pockets with bottles of wine from his own house, and I carried his porron in my backpack. Once we were underground and his friend had shown us around his bodega, Raúl pulled out a bottle, filled a porron, and he and his friend demonstrated how to drink out of it. You pour the wine in an arc into your mouth without touching the spout. It is not as easy as it would seem to do this without pouring wine in your nose or dribbling it all over your clothes. Luckily I wore black. I asked why this way? As soon as I said it, I realized, ahh! When done correctly, nobody’s mouth touches the porron. This makes for easy cleanup: no wine glasses to wash.
It took a lot of practice to get the technique right, but after 3 or 4 bottles throughout the day, we all mostly got there in the end.
After the escape room and the Bodega la Navarra, we went in search of tapas. Raúl’s favorite place was packed, so we walked around the block to another, where we got tortilla de patatas, the Spanish omelette with potatoes that I can’t get enough of, and some sort of small salty fish. I don’t know what it was but it was delicious. Probably anchovies. We were six people, and there was enough for each of us to have one or two bites of each, and then we headed back to the first tapas place to see if any people had cleared out.
We managed to find a standing table and ordered a larger assortment of tapas. The one I still dream about was a toast with warm goat cheese and caramelized onions. Oh my god. It was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. There was something else with small pickles sandwiching anchovies and an olive on a toothpick. Google tells me that tapas that are skewered like this are called pintxos, and this particular one was possibly a Gilda. They are described online as “piquant”. I agree. It was briny and vinegary and crunchy and delicious. And everywhere had olives de anchoa (anchovies). I couldn’t get enough of these either. Raúl took us to his favorite olive shop at the end of our day and I bought a giant can to bring home.
After tapas, as we walked along the streets of the town’s center, Raúl pointed out doors everywhere — “That goes to a bodega. And that one. That one, too, and that one.” As he neared his peña’s bodega, he pointed across the square, “That’s my wife’s association.” He waved his card over the door, and we descended another set of stone stairs.
Raúl’s porron
We filled the porron and carried it with us as Raúl took us on a tour of his association’s bodega. One room was full of pictures of the members of the peña, lined up like in class photos at school, different events they’d hosted, and big life events, like new babies. I kept saying, “I can’t believe this is your life Raúl.” It was one of the neatest things I’ve ever experienced.
1503 map of Aranda de Duero, which is Spain’s oldest city plan and map in perspective. It is everywhere around the city, including on the label of the first bottle of wine we drank while there, the Tierra Aranda Tempranillo
I never knew I wanted to go to Segovia or Aranda de Duero, and now that I’ve been, I’m so grateful I got the chance. It would not have been the same without our friend and coworker as a guide. It was magical. Thank you, Raúl!
The windows are open. Cool air drifts in. Insects whirr and birds trill. Soft peach light chases the blackness away and lights the white rails of our front steps. A cat lays on my arms and purrs.
I love mornings. They’re calm. Quiet. Slow moving. The day is fresh and new. The air is crisp. The world wakes and stretches and sings its songs.
I would have said mornings are my favorite time of day. But yesterday evening, my husband and I sat on the back deck. We drank white wine and nibbled on cheese and crackers, and I admired all the work I did in the garden. Our daughter drove back to college last weekend, and our son left yesterday, and after we took him to breakfast, I went straight to the nursery then straight out into the garden without going into the house. I transplanted salvias and yarrows, ripped out sickly looking marigolds, and put in 14 mums in varying shades of deep reds and golden yellows. I’m ready for fall.
After all that gardening, and after my shower, and after a winning game of solitaire, and after watching a bird splash in the fresh water I’d put in the bird bath — they tend to bathe at the end of the day — I went out into the cool air and realized how much I love evening. In June and July, fireflies light the trees. In September and October, the air crackles and leaves turn to jewels. November through February, fires pop and hiss in the fireplace, and I sit next to them with my book.
I’m bad at picking favorites. Favorite books, favorite movies, favorite colors. Favorite food. Favorite time of day. Because really, I like the night, too, for sleeping. And the middle of the day for doing stuff. But I do like the bookends best. The morning is full of promise, and the evening is full of appreciation.
Back in the days before cell phones, when I was not yet an adult so junk mail and bills didn’t exist for me, I loved mail. I’d eagerly await the mail truck every day, especially in summer, in hopes I’d get a letter from a friend or my pen pal in Maine. When there was a hand-addressed envelope in the mailbox, my heart would leap with delight.
In high school, when my dear friend went away to camp every summer, and then moved away against her will junior year, we wrote each other multiple letters per week. Fat letters that pushed the limits of envelopes drenched in doodles and drawings.
My husband and I lived apart the first two years of our courtship. And by apart, I don’t mean we live in separate apartments, I mean that he was finishing his summer job in the Florida Keys, or hiking the Appalachian Trail, or working on Jekyll Island while I finished college in Athens, Georgia. We got to know each other through letters.
For the same reasons I appreciate communicating through written text at work — writing refines thought and anchors ideas that can be revisited and reread for contemplation — I am grateful for written correspondences with people I know and love. You get to know different parts of each other through writing that might not come through in spoken conversations. You get to see inside someone’s mind when they have the privacy and quiet to sit down and write a letter, alone, without a partner conversing in real time with them. You have an artifact you can keep for 35 years, then open one day if you’re feeling nostalgic, and see their handwriting, and what was important to you both at that point in your lives, and smile with love for this person who makes your life better because they make you laugh, they open your eyes, they make you think about things in fresh ways, they’ve helped you become who you are.
I am still close with my dear friend who I wrote letters with 35 years ago. She visited me while I was on sabbatical, and she told me she wants to get back into letter writing. She and I have been writing letters back and forth ever since. I checked the mailbox last night and found a hand-addressed envelope in there for me. My heart leapt with delight.
We had family dinner and game night plans, so I saved the letter. When I went to bed, I knew I’d have it to look forward to in the quiet of morning, and I again felt that little thrill of delight. I savored it just now with my coffee, and some time in my downtime of the weekend, I get to compose a response.
Butterfly Mind 