RPR 115: Memory is a mother

Two days ago I sat in our car with the seat radiating heat beneath me and Teenager Leong in the back and Keri down the street checking and re-checking an unclear but literal sign that we were in the wrong place. This is another way she takes such good care of us.

“Hold hands?” I ventured to my quick-turn son who only just recently seems to have come back into his soft self after a year of utter exasperation with his old moms.

He offered two fingers outstretched and I held on gently but completely for one, maybe two perfect minutes, until Keri returned and then he pulled his hand away.

Keri declared that we were, in fact, parked in the right place after all. Unbuckled, we climbed out into the Canadian cold to meet Keri’s oldest friend and his lovably crumply husband for hamburgers and poutine. Christmas in Canada is officially our LZ family jam now.

2024 has been so long and so short. One year ago I was getting ready to start my long-dreamed of MFA program by closing my throat around panic about how cold the Vermont snow will be, and how many books I couldn’t possibly finish per term, and how unfathomably ridiculous I will surely seem sitting in my elderly age around a seminar table with my little stories and big broken heart. What have I gotten myself into.

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“What if I can’t do it?” I kept asking Keri. And Keri, bless her, just kept sitting with me and my closed throat and watery eyes at our dining room table.

Here are the hand warmers I got you.

Here is your whole life of you doing things you couldn’t do.

Here is me, just one plane ride away if anyone fucks with you.

It’s just ten days at a time.

I will take care of your plants and our boy while you are doing exactly this thing you are meant to do.

And so I went and it was more wonderful than anything I ever could have imagined—stopping first to stay a few days with my old friend Cas and her gorgeous elf son who calls me Auntie Kitchen, before meeting my misfit cohort crew of poets, storytellers, and recovering journalists at Bennington. An INFJ’s dream come true for real. And then I got to go back in June and do it all over again, but less scared.

To recall everything that came next, I had to look back over the comparatively few photos I took over the last twelve months. Memory has been doing strange things lately. There is so little of it. There is far too much of it.

Before looking through my phone, I had the sense that I spent this year underground, hiding with my books and poodles and grief, trying to write, but mostly just trying to not. The digital archive, however, told a different story.

• 🥹 There was the miraculous transformation of the skeleton who joined our family.

• 💋 There was a new job for me that resulted in perhaps the most absurd and most glorious thing I’ve written since my McSweeney’s open letter to my holiday nemesis. (Side note update: No card from “Pam” again this year. That’s the power of writing in action, folks.)

• 🎧 There was my long-loved and long-labored-over Odd One In podcast finally—finally!—released into the world. If you have a 28-minute walk planned today, I promise this SOMETHING TO LISTEN TO would make a very entertaining companion:

• 🤩 There was remembering what it felt like to weep and cheer at Little Leong’s toddler dance recital as Keri and I tuned-in to Teenager Leong’s public radio debut.

• ⛰️ There was a helicopter ride that reminded me with a jolt that the world is absurdly and terrifyingly beautiful.

• 🔴 There was one unforgettable week with the real Big Red Dot and perfume making and an Innovative Educator reunion that culminated in roller skating to a DJ Nice set under the Atlanta stars.

• 💚 There were my genius Seatown Story Collective students and our TEDxBallardYouth showcase that reminded me that I cannot escape the fact that I am a teacher forever.

• ⛸️ There was Keri’s inspiring short film about the triumph of an underdog baseball salmon (underfish?).

• ❤️ Then, of course, there was Christmas in Keri’s motherland with so much Purdy’s chocolate and ice-skating and our pragmatic four-year-old nephew letting us know, nonchalantly, that there used to be two live reindeer at Grouse Mountain but it looks like one passed away. It was maybe the best holiday ever.

And also there was therapy—so much therapy this year—and all the looking into the abyss and the abyss looking back into me that had me on the floor many times over.

But then. Then all that spiritual and psychic reckoning with history, and the present, and the future I am determined to keep building also lifted me back up and into this family that I have made—that me and Keri and Little Leong and both of our messy rescue doodles have made together—with such profound gratitude that it fills me up so hot and sweet it aches.

Yes. Okay so back to the so long and so short. Which is all to say, that there are so many THINGS TO HOLD ON TO.

And also, this is true too: It’s hard to hold on sometimes. A lot of times, actually, for me over the last year. No, last year-and-a-half. I know I have been less in touch with all of the people I love for a while now. This is why.

I am a burrower, but a big-hearted one. I’ve been sending all of you nonstop light from my cocoon in my imperfect, introverted way. Hang in there with me. I’m coming back.

I want to say my burrowing started (re-started?) with the protection order hearing that brought my fight for my son’s safety back to court that summer Mellina got so sick, and Yosh and Keri brought Spam musubi and haupia cake to my garden party, and Baby Sully wore a flower hat, but I know now more clearly than ever that the hard-holding-on started well before any recent times.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over 2024 it’s that stories can save us over and over, as many times as we need. Remember that MFA reading requirement I was so worried about? Turns out that was no problem.

I’m rounding out the year with more than 44 books under my belt, having enthusiastically replaced the whisky and ill-informed romances of my reckless youth with reading as my top tactic for getting through it.

If you’re looking for your next book to crack, I’ve got you. Here are some of the titles from the last year that I can’t stop thinking about:

• Happily, Sabrina Orah Mark

• We Were Once a Family, Roxanna Asgarian

• I Who Have Never Known Men, Jacqueline Harpman

• Blackouts, Justin Torres

• On Immunity, Eula Biss

• Lost in Summerland, Barrett Swanson

• Molly, Blake Bulter

• A Little Middle of the Night, Molly Brodak

• Boy Erased, Garrard Conley

• Two or Three Things I Know For Sure, Dorothy Allison

• Create Dangerously, Edwidge Danticat

• The Garden Against Time, Olivia Laing

And all of you too—old friends and RPR readers who’ve stayed with me through the pauses—I’m still holding on tight to all of you and sending wishes for a quietly brave step (or plunge) into the new year.

I know some unsavory shifts are coming in January—the bad vibes are always trying to creep in, actually—but the Year of the Snake is just around the corner. Charm. Transformation. Wisdom. Good vibes for real. We’ve got it all waiting for us on the other side.

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Happy holidays and happy New Year, friends. Leave a comment below if you’re feeling like spreading some cheer too.

With love and unlikely optimism for 2025 and beyond,

K.