it could Happen::MaY 31, 2026

Early morning on our walk, the dog and I see our gentleman friend. There is no other way to describe him. He is white-haired and mannerly, graciously handsome, as well as generous with the treats, to the delight of my adoring dog. His own dog died a few months ago. “The house is lonely,” he says. “And it seems to expand while I sit there.” His eyes are pale blue, perhaps a little watery now. He gives my dog another treat and she looks like she would shake me off like a bad dream and go on home with him if only I would let her. I would probably let her if he asked, but he doesn’t, and we say goodbye.

At home, there’s a dead robin lying on a rock beside the honeysuckle, its toes extended as if in the midst of some beautiful dance. The dog sniffs and I kneel beside it, curious, see the impossibly twisted neck. It must have been caught mid-flight. A swoop of joy, I decide, before the hard stop.

There is homework to do: a final project about time and our modern horror vacui – an art term meaning the fear of empty space. I am watching videos of a young musician who is taking a year off from the internet. They record monthly updates on a camcorder and a friend posts them. “I am starting to realize how long an hour is,” they say. “Time stretches and stretches. I feel like I’m extending my life.” I think of the gentleman in his lonely, expanding house. Part of my project is a multi-week experiment in which I, too, try to limit my use of screens. I am on day three. Somewhere around noon I realize I have been watching YouTube videos about so-much-protein even though not watching YouTube videos is the first item on my project parameters list. I turn off my laptop and try to read a book in which the author argues there is no viable future for humanity which includes the internet. I think I agree with him. I write a few pages in my journal about the musician’s commitment and discoveries, about my own conviction that the internet is killing human connection. By 4:00 I discover myself watching a video about the styles I absolutely must not wear this summer and go outside to haul branches to the burn pile for a while.

I stop at the coop to say hello to the new chicks. I swore I would never get chickens again, but coyotes took one of the geese pair a few weeks ago and there is nothing sadder than a lonely goose. The new babies have perked him right up. He honks at me a few times and struts around the pen, chest out, while the chicks fizzle around his feet.

A half hour outdoors and I am full of fresh air and conviction. A swoop of joy. I will never watch another YouTube video again. If the internet disappears tomorrow I will be better for it. The rest of my life will be full of stretched time. I will feel like I am living forever.

It could happen.

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Hello friends. It is June! In a couple of weeks I will be graduating and shifting my life around a bit. I will still be studying (I am starting an MFA in the fall) but I hope to be writing a lot more: here, there, everywhere. I will keep this blog as usual, but I’m planning on posting on Substack as well, for those who prefer to do their reading there. That will be a summer project, however. This summer feels full of projects and possibilities already. I’m really looking forward to it, despite all the dreaded heat warnings I keep hearing. *eep*

How about you? Plans? Fears? Hopes?

Reading: Scorched Earth: Beyond the Digital Age to a Post-Capitalist World//Jonathan Crary – The polemic I mentioned above. If you have a love/hate with the internet and late-stage capitalism, you might like this one.

I paired that with Jenny Odell’s Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock – (looks like this one has had a name update. I have an earlier edition.) I’m not going to lie, I think How to Do Nothing is a better book, but I did get some good things out of this. Mainly a reminder to re-visit Josef Pieper’s Leisure, the Basis of Culture.

Transcription//Ben Lerner - Lerner wants to think about how media and memory are related. The novel asks some interesting questions, but it didn’t wow me the way it did others.

Orlando//Virginia Woolf – speaking of how we relate to time: Woolf erases the boundaries of bodies, gender, and mortality with Orlando. Fascinating book.

Currently reading: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek//Annie Dillard – if anyone can inspire me to stay off the internet…

Practice//Rosalind Brown – a novel about an Oxford undergraduate working on an essay about Shakespeare’s sonnets. Deliciously slow and meditative.

Watching: We are really enjoying Widow’s Bay. It’s billed horror/comedy but the horror is pretty light. I am notorious for not finding comedies funny (I know, I know) but this one does it for me.

Leith Ross’ Screen-Free video updates

Listening: Dove Ellis.

Inspired by: Ann Esselystn’s 2 minute 52 sec Guinness record dead hang at 90!

I named all the new chicks after early women artists: Clare Leighton, Fanny Burney, Rosa Bonheur, Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Leyster, and Gwen John

Lastly: