memoir · half-cloth, bone & linen · published last year
a memoir of a single year in which the author, by deliberate
arrangement, did very little. she let her telephone number
lapse. she did not travel. she did not publish. she walked
twice daily and kept a diary
that records nothing more than what she saw on the walk and
what was in the house when she returned.
the memoir's first part is the year itself, recorded in the
laconic register of those entries. the second part is the
year reread, ten years later — what was happening, in her
life, that the diary refused to mention; what the
quiet was placed around, and why.
she walks past the harbour on most
pages. she does not name the town. it is generous in the
second part and restrained in the first. some readers will
prefer either.
the memoir closes with a chapter on what the year did not
cure. the author lists, without comment, the same
small griefs she carried in.
she ends with the line that opens the diary: the morning
was cold; the kettle took longer than usual; nothing else
happened.
marginalia · pencil, on the half-title i bought this on the day my own quiet year ended. i have not yet decided whether to start another.