all new

My mom is still in intensive care and will be at least for another few days, after which she will be in the 'normal' hospital and then in outpatient rehabilitation. Today makes two weeks, two surgeries, hundreds of new vocabulary words for me to learn (stent, arteriovenous malformation), dozens of nurses, three surgeons. I've been learning a new kind of grown-up-ness these weeks: bills paid, hospital rooms attended, grief and healing observed. Your thoughts and words are a great support in a time that continues to be difficult.

There's been so much new happening concurrently: these baby clothes (which Martha and Barrett helped me finish); new drawings and silhouettes I've been working on at the hospital (lots of time to sit still with a pen and paper); plans for the next book for Milkweed, readings in New York and Chicago and maybe Portland; plans for the future. But it's hard to think about what's next, at the moment; I'm living in a world that's completely day-to-day, or hour-to-hour on the bad days, or ten-minute-block-to-ten-minute-block when it's particularly bad.

I won't write about this in flowery, interesting prose, but I wanted to let you know I'm still here, that your words are helping me through the hardest thing I've experienced, and that there'll be more here as the days go by.


My mom's baby clothes will be for sale here on Wednesday (20 June), just for the day.