365 Memories

It's a faraway memory, nearly lost in the tide of zeroes and ones that shape our new digital world. Sometimes, though, I do remember the calming effect of a safe light: the soft red glow that spilled through the darkrooms of my adolescence. Years ago (decades now, I'm amazed to say), I pursued photography as a serious study. I didn't go far with it, never approached anything near a professional level, but I took it a tad farther than just a hobby. For a time. I was still in high school, and the darkroom was a comfortable place to be—hidden from sight, engaged in the act of creating something, seeing images develop from nothing. I remember the smell of chemicals, the eddy of the water bath, but most of all the light in darkness. Red is usually a stimulant—to passion, to action, to anger—and it's associated with all kinds of vice. In the darkroom, though, it was none of those things. I did not meditate when I was a teen. I had no informed opinion of meditation. Still, wha...

Senses swimming in a deep, blue hue. An unexpected bath of color, and the feeling of being washed clean. In the intimate, empty auditorium of the Musée Chagall, in Nice, France, I sat in shafts of light made dazzling by the stained-glass windows of the artist's spiritual genius. Outside, at the base of the hill on which the museum perched, the January air did little to keep beach goers off the Promenade, but my mom and I preferred being inside, in this museum. I am surprised we did not go back daily while in Nice. It was 1990. I was living my twenty-first year, and in that moment, in front of that three-panel installation of Chagall's windows, I could allow myself to feel that I was just then, only then, beginning to live. In fact, the windows are called La création du monde , or "The Creation of the World," dating from 1971–1972. I was two to three years old when they were made, so we were very nearly born at the same time, the windows and I. The auditorium was u...

Some experiences—no, many—I wish I could have over again, exactly the way they were except for one thing: I'd like to take my intervening years and their wisdom, maturity, or or insights back with me. I'd like to see with the eyes and feel with the heart I have now, those things that I am tempted to say were wasted on my youth. Full-time student status (the unadulterated chance for learning, with no distractions, that college presented), first love, and many of my travel adventures. Of these last, the one I most wish I could replay: my family's visit to Japan. I was fifteen years old, and both my mother and I got to accompany my father on a business trip to Tokyo, then take the bullet train to Kyoto, where we stayed in a traditional Japanese inn, or ryokan . I'd like to think that I did take advantage of the opportunity, to the full measure of my ability at that time of life. I was mesmerized, curious, immersed myself in small details (the photo here is one I took on th...

Just days after I received my MFA degree, I got officially engaged (the idea had come up before, in a very unofficial moment). Perhaps my husband was afraid that otherwise I'd decide to go back to Chicago, where I was living before I attended graduate school. There had not been much danger of that, really. By staying in New York, I would be close to my family—the main reason I came back East rather than doing graduate work elsewhere—and also, New York still held its lure as a vital place for someone interested in the publishing industry. I was jobless and was waiting to find out about residencies at artists' colonies to which I had applied, all the while remaining pragmatic and working on employment options in the city. While in this state of limbo, I had a good amount of time on my hands, and much of that time I spent in the apartment that my husband then shared with his brother and another friend. Their place was on East 92 nd Street, on the fifth floor of a brownstone walk-...

Blue, blue, Brazilian blue. My one, my only love is you . . . I may not recall with total accuracy this, or indeed any, specific passage, but to this day I bear the imprint of the text and vivid artwork bound together in the book  Lion and Blue . My father gave this book to me for a birthday in the 1970s (maybe '75 or '76); he inscribed it with words I also can no longer quote verbatim though the emotion behind them still resonates. I was between the ages of six and eight, no more. The book, a fable of love written by Robert Vavra and illustrated with reproduced oil paintings by Fleur Cowles, was published in 1974 by William Morrow & Co, and was marketed as children's literature. It's appeal, however, crossed over to all ages. What I remember most is the deeply saturated hue of the blue Brazilian butterfly with black-veined wings, who was the object of the lion's love. I remember being mesmerized by its intensity, and the color has in fact become a motif in my l...

They'd move so quickly—hooking, looping, twisting yarn with a crochet hook—your eyes couldn't keep pace with the motion of Yiayia's fingers as they transformed an unbroken strand link by cotton link into a lace doily, a place mat; wool into an afghan. Her hands were always busy, fingers flying, creating an abundance of fabric objects, some functional and others purely decorative, placed under lamps and dishes, serving to cover side tables, the backs or arms of the plastic-coated living room furniture I remember quite well (and thought of as strange). The white lace doilies, several of which I have inherited, are quite delicate, some simple and others intricate; they have in common an elegance that was generally lacking in my grandmother's difficult and often impoverished immigrant life. Because of her circumstances, her culture, her upbringing, her temperament, it should be said that she was not delicate with her children (my mother and her five siblings), and that thi...

White expanse of linen; bleached perfect square in front of me on a polished walnut bar. Folding, without too much thought required. Repetitive action draining away the minutes before the doors to the restaurant would open for business. Making my way through graduate school, I covered some measure of expenses by returning to the standby job of many artists: waiting tables. Growing up, it seemed you quickly fell into one camp or the other when it came to the (not necessarily) simple job for money—you were either "restaurant" or "retail." I dislike shopping, dislike salespeople trying to help me shop . . . I'm hardly right for retail. For me, it's always been restaurants, either front or back of house. I have worked at restaurants of varying degrees of size and finesse, from small hash-slinging diner to raw bar (shucking oysters is no mean task!), from bookstore café and espresso bar to the most recent, a more upscale American establishment. The shifts would ...