Flashlight #9: Home again, home again
Back to the US of A just in time to change zombie baby diapers.
After two months in Portugal, we’re home. We are, as Leela says, Moose-and-kitty home. Asheville home. Red-gold-fall leaves home.
If you read the last flashlight, you know how deeply in love with Lisbon I am. I am also quite sure that being on the road with a toddler since July (do not forget, people, that we had the audacity to take Leela on a month-long camping van trip across the country just before leaving for Portugal) has taken 10 years off my life.
We had initially planned to stay in Portugal longer, but for complicated reasons (everything is ok!) we came home early. I felt very sad to leave Lisbon; can I say one more time that I loved it there? I loved it.
On the plus side, we got an unexpected week in the Azores on the way back, on the island of Sao Miguel, and my brother came to meet us (Leela thinks he is made of sunshine itself), and whoo eeee those islands are spectacular. Thermal pools, steep jungle-treed mountains, cows, abandoned hotels, blue hydrangea everywhere.
Portugal delivers.
Are you going? Do you want recommendations? I have 600. Do you want to know what it felt like to live in a city, a big, bustling city, where I was never afraid, not once, of someone having a gun? Or of someone clearly tweaking on who-knows-what and acting erratically? Where I didn’t ever accidentally step in human poop? Where I walked through the city parks at night alone? Where we never drove anywhere, walked almost everywhere? Where people passing on the streets stopped to play with Leela, or pinch her cheek, or kiss her head? Where there’s free preschool and health care, and far fewer houseless people and obvious drug addiction because there’s so much social support? Where I ate a pastry every day— I am not exaggerating, I ate a pastry every single day and I will never stop feeling good about that—and drank a million espressos and cups of delicious cheap wine and—this one isn’t a question, I just want to remember the pastries.
When we first got off the plane at JFK, I noticed how dirty the airport was, cans overflowing with garbage, people shoving past even with a crying baby in my arms. The police all had machine-gun style weapons slung across their chest.
You know this already.
I don’t mean to come on here and rail against America, that’s not interesting or new, and there is also a lot I appreciate about being here. This is where most of my people are. And do you know what else I love about America? How much people SHOW UP for Halloween. The decorations in our neighborhood this year were on point, mostly because our next door neighbors throw Carnevil each year, with things like Krusty’s food truck and ring toss around severed hands and feet and mini-shopping carts full of zombie baby dolls that Leela decided were her babies, thank you very much, and pushed around all Halloween night, picking them up when they began to cry and patting their backs (a little aggressively, if I’m honest) and singing them Frère Jacques. And yes, also changing their poo poo diapers and wiping their butts, which I’m thrilled to report has become a mainstay activity. Zombies poop a lot.
Anyway, America. Here’s another delight.
A different neighbor, Joe, is an excellent farmer and had given me sweet potato starts to plant before I left. I popped them into the ground and watered them a couple times. I didn’t really expect them to survive, didn’t even put them into garden soil, just a patch of whatever North Carolina dirt. Anyway, we got home, (guns, zombie baby poop, etc.) and the vines withered with the frost and just for fun I started digging in the dirt, and lo! Behold!
Friends, there are, I kid you not, probably twenty pounds of potatoes we dug up! The dirt was hard and full of rocks and the roots of nearby trees and rolly pollies and whip scorpions and egg clusters of unknown creatures and also, also, just clusters and clusters of sweet potatoes. Some big as a kitten, others the size of my thumb, and Jeremy, Leela and I dug and dug and dug.
And now, per the internet’s instruction, after brushing off the dirt , careful not to cut them open, I have set them in the warmest spot in our house to cure for a week. Starches will convert to sugars, sweetening them up. But we have been eating them already. They are delicious. And we don’t have a lot of patience.
News of The Red Grove
Galleys have arrived, squee! A galley is a printed version of the book that is like a mock-up. It gets sent out to blurbers and reviewers and publications, in hope of getting some eyes (and nice words written) on the book before publication. I don’t have mine in hand yet, but I’m going to kiss it and sing it Frère Jacques and change its diaper when I do.
Publication date is May 14, 2024.
If you’re part of a university or arts organization, I am starting to book teaching, speaking gigs and readings for the 2024-25 school year, so keep me in mind when you’re deciding on your upcoming speaker/guest teacher series. I’m not high-maintenance, though I am superpowered by Portuguese wine and pastries.
What’s up with Leela?
Leela is back in her Montessori school, and delighted to be at home with Moose dog and kitty. She spends a lot of time running through the house, joy-screaming in the highest possible human register, chasing the cat. Sorry, kitty. She talks constantly, full sentences, the girl just won’t quit. She provides commentary on nighttime lullabies. I sing: twinkle twinkle little star, and Leela says, Leela saw star in the sky, ooooh, stars, and moon, outside, up, in the sky, and—and then I have to cut her off and get back to the song: how I wonder what you are, and she says, what you are, what you are, what is it? Up above the world so high, ohhhh, she says, so high, up up up in the sky, airplane, Leela go airplane, other people go airplane, mama and dada in airplane, uncle sam in airplane, and—friends, it is cute, nay, adorable, but sometimes you just need your child to go the f*$k to sleep.
How to Stay Sane in Brutalizing Times
There is a lot of chaos and fear and heartbreak in the world right now. People much smarter than me have written a lot of important things about it, and I will leave commentary to them. All I can add is that it is hard to be in the world sometimes, hard to keep the eyes trained to what is good and small and right in front of us and also keep in our hearts what is big and hard, but we must do both, right? We cannot do just one. My friend, the writer Erin Harris, sent this piece by David Brooks called “How to Stay Sane in Brutalizing Times.” I like this quote from it:
But most people — maybe more than you think — are peace- and love-seeking creatures who are sometimes caught in bad situations. The most practical thing you can do, even in hard times, is to lead with curiosity, lead with respect, work hard to understand the people you might be taught to detest.
That means seeing people with generous eyes, offering trust to others before they trust you. That means adopting a certain posture toward the world. If you look at others with the eyes of fear and judgment, you will find flaws and menace; but if you look out with a respectful attitude, you’ll often find imperfect people enmeshed in uncertainty, doing the best they can.
And I just heard the writer Ross Gay, one of my favorites, read, and so much of his work centers on what is small and close as a source of delight—the fig tree he walks beneath, the tomato seedling he carries through the airport. For me, the sweet potatoes we dug from the dirt, and my little daughter, hugging them. Zombie babies with dirty diapers.
Sending love to all of you, and gratitude in this month of thanks, and bounty in whatever part of your life could use a little plumping.
Upcoming classes and offerings:
Ongoing- Accountability Workshops —we are starting a new cohort in January that will meet every other Monday from 1-2:30pm ET. Want to gift the writer or creative in your life something that will actually make a world of difference? Get them a month (or two!) of real creative accountability. Is the writer or creative in your life YOU? Gift yourself it, friend.
If you’re in the Asheville area, I’ll be reading for the Rumpus, as part of the AVL Review Lit Night at Story Parlor, 7pm, on Friday, Nov 17th . These events sell out, so get your tickets early! The rest of the lineup looks fantastic.
I’m teaching a new class in January: Going Deep: Writing Interiority in Fiction and Nonfiction, at the Flatiron Writers Room in Asheville, NC. Sunday, January 28, 2024, 1pm-4pm ET.
Good Moms on Paper Podcast: Join me and Annie Hartnett for season 3 as we interview other writers about writing, parenting, and creative accountability. Listen to any of the past 40+ episodes we’ve recorded for fantastic conversations.
Endorsements:
Talk to Me – 2022 horror film about a group of friends who use an embalmed hand to channel the dead. Things get, well, out of hand. Creepy, well-paced, beautiful, great.
Maggie O’Farrell - everything she has written. I recently read The Marriage Portrait but really, she just keeps knocking it out of the park.
Let Us Descend by Jesamyn Ward. It’s her newest book and, truth be told, I’ve only just begun. But look, she is one of our greatest living writers, a true genius (if you haven’t read Salvage the Bones or Sing, Unburied, Sing, get them immediately) and so far its hauntingly good.
Spiced Chickpea Stew with Coconut and Turmeric—I’ve been making a version of this for years, first introduced to me by my beloved friend AB Gorham, and it always delivers. Cozy, healthy, delicious.
Okonomiyaki – Japanese savory pancakes. I’ve been using a batter mix gifted to me by beloveds Jess and Yasu, but if you are not so lucky, this recipe is great and endlessly adaptable, I throw in whatever leftover veggies or meats I have. It’s so damn good.
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Xo,
Tessa
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