Monday, January 26, 2026
remember?
Hi. A brief placeholder entry for this blog. Do you remember? I remember books and book people and bookshops and reading a whole lot. I remember bookhunting and library sales and the passion I felt for the world of books. Simultaneously small and large, that world. I remember writing about it for years and years. And inhabiting it as fully as I could. Ryan and I navigated it together. Without him I doubt I ever would've been brave enough to open my own shop. He always said, "You're ready," to whatever I was hemming and hawing about. It's been just over four and a half years since Ry stepped away, or toward, whatever comes next. Before he died he told me that he thought the world was entering another dark age, and I see that fear has come to pass, in our country and far beyond. And yet he would never only say that. That wasn't him. He loved life and the world, and offered a positive uplift in most all that he did.
Over the past year I printed a lot of writing of his from the last few years of his life, and got copies into various special collections in libraries and historical societies here in Maine and farther afield. It was one of my goals to honor him in this way, and I met that goal. My memoir The Ocean of Trees remains unfinished but I completed a pass through the manuscript before the end of the year and made what I think are the final edits. I hope to print a few copies privately in the spring, just to have for myself and for history perhaps. The book holds our basic story, or at least the parts of it that I can express - some of the facts and feelings.
Hodge the cat died over a year ago, the other third of our chosen family. He lived to be almost nineteen and his going was definite. He let me know it was his time. I miss him too and remember my chosen family - the three of us. How could I forget? Ry and Hodge seem far away now, and yet the grief washes over me in fresh waves often. I know they aren't the grief itself. They were life-affirming and we sure lived. I yearn for the relative innocence we had in the world before the pandemic, before a lot of things. I remember the safety of our privilege, the stretches of time during which nothing terrible happened to us or the people we loved, or our neighbors. The deep joy. The quiet contentedness. In some ways I know these times were dreams, because of course difficult things happened all over the place too.
These days, in this dark age, there is still some happiness. I have a new friend whom I love and who loves me; I see my family and a few close friends; I paint and write a lot; I live quietly. Present also is fear, sorrow, and helplessness, and then action toward what I hope is the just and the good. Peace.
