desire; a list:

fat, crispy, salty french fries.
August tomatoes on toast.
sparkling rosé sipped under a rustling tree
cucumber, mint, and lime. 

clean sheets smooth and crackling
settled heavy mass of purring fur
the squish of socks on wooden floors
silk that whispers from shoulder to hip

lavender everything!
cut grass and wet cedar fences
vetiver, rose, and oud
galbanum: soaring, icy, and sharp

Mondrian's autumnal farmhouse
my virgin martyrs framed in gold
winter trains sending up clouds of snow
scumbled edge of water and sky

the opening bars of Beethoven's 7th
strong winds sighing through aged trees
hearty, delighted, shared laughter
the—listen for it!—crackle of a tiny flame

ghost of spinsterhood yet to come II

There are some people who are old at forty and some who are young at seventy. The woman who I am thinking of is old in her early sixties. She has a pronounced dowager's hump; I swear it is bigger than it was this spring. Her nose appears to be growing, too. She dyes her coarse, long hair a rich brown, and her voice always sounds surprisingly chipper as she chirps "I hope you have a pleasant day!"

In thirty years will I be like her? Will I live among privileged undergraduates and poor graduate students in inexpensive housing? Will I, Alice Koller-like, hustle after fixed-term job after fixed-term job, earning just enough to keep off the streets most of the time? How will I be when I have lost all pretense to physical beauty? Will I be an object of gentle pity? Can I avoid that?

Will there be for me anyone on whom I can call when I am sick or weak? Can I do anything about that now--can I become the kind of person for whom community is a real, strong, pulsing part of life?

Will I regret, in thirty years, all the time I've spent looking for the perfect dress for my still reasonably-youthful body? Will I be irritated then with my current self for having worried over my most dramatic curves?

What will matter when my hair grows thin and my body grows slack?

and when I have a book budget again,

I will defend my dissertation at the end of the month. I would say I am behaving with surprising confidence and detachment about this except that I have picked-at, bloodied fingertips to show me a liar. Anxieties notwithstanding, I do take it to be a good sign that I have begun dreaming little but real dreams for a post-dissertation future:

• I want to reread all the big, expansive Russian novels. And to read the ones I still haven't read. Maybe I'll even make the time to finally learn Russian. (Ok. That last will probably not happen for some time.)

• I am genuinely looking forward to some of the courses I am scheduled to teach this fall (even if I am putting off the preparatory reading that will make the classes go more smoothly). 

• Oh! And Anna Akhmatova. I want to know everything about her, and I want to throw myself into her poetry.  

• I am looking forward to reading philosophy with real curiosity again. Maybe even, dare I hope it, with less shame.

I ought to add to this list any time things pop up. I don't want to forget. 

if I were a metaphysical poet, there'd be some deeper meaning here

We've reached the putrid stage of Chicago summer. The weather has been fine, and the plant life is lovely, but the dumpsters and trash cans (sometimes with help from the lake) are winning the olfactory wars here in the city.

There are still some places where one finds relief. On Monday I had the best walk. It threatened rain but I decided I would not mind, and off I went down to the lakeshore path. Just as I reached the top of the path, the rain began. I waited it out a little under an awning and then continued, only to get caught by a more insistent downpour just as I reached a thick cluster of trees. I waited there, somewhat shielded, and watched the rain and admired the lake. There were some people nearby and soon a young man with an umbrella came and stood next to me. His name was Phil (if I recall correctly) and he was the sound guy for the show that he and the others were filming. We chatted and laughed and looked helplessly at the rain. When it finally slowed significantly, I continued on my way.

That's when the glorious thing happened. The sun made a surprise appearance in the midst of clouds and rain and the water, where the sun reached it, lightened to turquoise streaks against dark blue. The drops, where the sun beamed, looked like nothing so much as giant, gaudy sequins heaving along the waves. I was alone along the beach when this happened, and I laughed to see it. All this and just for me!

By the time I reached the top of the path again, I was exhausted and exhilarated. I was utterly spent and near-delirious with joy, satisfied to my bones and eager to do it again.

accusations

I'm doing it again: imagining a silent court of invisible accusers.
Always people I know, people in my life or just outside it. How they judge me!
(in my head, that is. In my head, these people judge me harshly, they criticize everything I do in the moment that I do it. In my head, that is.)
Accused, I defend myself against them.
(My self-apologia are quite eloquent while they last)
Or, sometimes, I simply endure their saying what I know to be unjust and untrue.
(Oh, how queenly I am! How patient! How humble!)
Or, sometimes--sometimes I remember that none of it has actually happened and I whisper this to God.
Lord, I am doing it again: I am imagining my silent court of invisible accusers.
I am imagining this and it has not happened.
I am putting accusations into the mouths of unguilty people.
Oh, there I go, I just did that again, and I didn't even notice.

eyelashes

There I go again, Lord, admiring my own eyelashes.
How lovely they are! Dark and long and, though I don't wish to boast, I swear they are much thicker than they were last year.
Other women apply cosmetics to their eyelashes the more beautifully to frame their jewel eyes.
I, perverse, (as always) care for my eyes so that their frame might receive all the attention I think it deserves:
...!
And just when I get to this point, to the point of imagining ardent admirers of my (very fine) eyelashes, I laugh.
I say to You, God, "I am admiring my own eyelashes. Again." And we laugh together about it.

olives

I think that hope must taste like an olive--pungent and briny, like tears or sweat or sex.
I don't think I want a sweet, candy-fluff hope. I want hope that bites back.

I haven't met hope in the form of a bird, something winged and soaring.

I used to think that "poor in spirit" was a soft way of letting rich people into heaven:
no need to be poor, or to turn away from Mammon. You can be rich, rich, rich and still slide right in.

But in the moment of off-putting surprise, under the power of bitter and salt--
as in the first taste of an olive, dearly bought, ill-afforded--
the world cracks open and life rushes in before it closes up again, and that, I think, is like hope.