I love this quote from Laura Cumming’s wonderful book, A Face to the World, On Self Portraits : “But paintings are fictions, and self-portraits too; there is not a novelist alive who does not believe it possible to enter the mind and voice of someone else, real or imaginary, and the same is true of painters.” I’ve just finished writing a book about New Zealand painter Anna Caselberg, Weaving Golden Air, My Journey With Anna Caselberg, where I tried to enter her “mind and voi

You can see how far I’ve come on this journey that I’m already planning my wardrobe for the next round of infusions. The cotton pants for the bottom, elastic waist, and soft material like pajamas. I make a note to order a new pair from L.L.Bean’s. The sweater I haven’t warn since the last cycle, packed away under my bed, deep blue and warm, the two shirts I bought once I was all finished the last time. A bright orange number and light blue one with white flowers. I have two p

When I’m in the machine, a PET scanner, Brian, the technician, tells me if I need anything just call, there’s a microphone, but I can’t imagine calling out to him. He’s in a little glass office guiding the machine up and down my body from my nose to my knees. I’ve already swapped stories with the wonderful nurse who gives me barium to drink and injects me with a radioactive tracer. We’ve been talking about snow in Philadelphia but stay away from the tragedies happening minute

Winter River Walk During the last three years I have lost: my hair three times; eighteen feet of my intestines; a portion of my liver; a layer of tissue from my left lung; two ovaries; one uterus; several lymph nodes; any feeling in the bottoms of my feet; control over my right hand; seventy pounds; my right hip; and any sense of privacy. However, I have not lost my love of gardening, hiking, and skiing. And my new right hip makes me feel as if I am twenty-five.

I love this snowy December light. I’ve been imagining snapping on my skis and heading out across a field, or skiing down slopes with a pool of shade at the base of fir trees, a place you wouldn’t want to end up in. Sunk up to your hips in snow. I’ve been watching one of the many mindless television shows I watch on one of the streaming services. It’s in Italian. A whole bunch of people are stranded in a beautiful inn in the Dolomites after first an earthquake, and then an ava

The Story of Katherine Mary Flannigan by Benedict and Nancy Freedman   Katherine Mary Flannigan gets on a train at sixteen to go to the...