Bibliographic 3.2: February
January felt two months long and then February went by in a blink, even with a bonus leap day. I didn’t think I was going to write this newletter because I wasn’t able to do it before February 29th, but it’s only March 2nd so I’m not too late. The whole point of this monthly exercise is to do it fast and not overthink or over-edit or get self-conscious, so here we are.
February is a minor month in the hierarchy of a year: you get through it, you forget about it, and if you’re lucky you get some nice moments. In 2024, I was lucky. I’m used to February being an arduous month, the coldest and iciest, one filled with accidents and dark days and, when I worked in accounting, a month of long hours closing a year-end. This February was nice weather-wise and life-wise, even with some work chaos and minor surgery thrown in for funsies.
Writing check in: I did…some…writing?! I followed my strategies and wrote by hand in my journal, just scrawling whatever to revisit (or not) at a future time. I didn’t think I’d work on novel edits this month, but I did. There’s a particular storyline I’ve changed and rearranged and removed and put back in, and my editor recommended that I focus only on that single storyline. Something about teasing it apart and thinking about it individually really helped. So that felt like a win. I do wish I’d written more, though. Maybe I’ll always feel that way.
Reading and reading adjacent: I haven’t been to enough readings recently, so not only was it nourishing sitting in a packed theatre watching Ijeoma Oluo being interviewed about her new book, Be A Revolution, but it was also inspiring and encouraging, two things that are hard to feel these days when thinking about world and what we can do to make a difference. I read buzz-y things: More, Molly Roden Winter’s memoir of open marriage, which I didn’t really love, and Splinters, Leslie Jamison’s divorce/motherhood memoir, which I strongly loved. I read Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam after watching the movie and I liked how the book was slower, more literary, less Hollywood. I saw Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, a musical based on a section of War and Peace, and despite being a grump about musicals, I adored the joyful and funny and moving performance.
In January, the cats knocked over the beloved cake plate Emily gave me last year. It broke in big pieces and Mark bought me a kintsugi kit so I could put it back together. In February I finally finished the project, and while it wasn’t the most graceful job, the gold cracks were beautiful in their way. I put the cake plate up on display and the cats knocked it over again. (CATS!) Amazingly, the glued together pieces didn’t break— they got stronger after breaking the first time. Anyway, I can’t bring myself to throw the plate away, so I’ll attempt to glue it back together again in March.
There’s a clunky metaphor in there, but I suppose that’s what I wish for this upcoming month— not giving up, keeping up with the work.
Good luck to us all. And the days are getting longer! That has to help.
xoxo Teri