More on: essays

It’s sugar that makes fruit gel. Sugar preserves. Sugar is an everyday miracle. It causes fruit to retain its bright color, until it is brighter than it ever was on the tree. Heat and sugar alchemize to turn a jar of jam into a glowing jewel.

In the Avett Brothers, we share in life’s ups and downs even without blood kinship, and by offering one another redemption born of the generosity of forgiveness, the gift of collaboration, and the freedom to pursue our ideas, our musical family blossoms with creativity.

I was warned by teachers and fellow artists against allowing my work to be influenced by others. But I have never really been convinced by the notion of being original.

I would like for Louise Glück to be my friend. This is a recent problem

In a passing moment at the door, Merrill captures a truth about the influence of friendship. Through the unaware examples of others, we recognize values we have been searching for in ourselves—edges or shades of the person we might become.

Through eight drafts over six years, John was my cheerleader. With each new revision, he would tell me how the play had grown, how a character had been fleshed out, how the story was becoming clearer, how I’d finally solved a certain scene. The acerbic John of early days was gone; he was my advocate, my encourager. My Samwise.

I ask her about all things millennial, and she tells me how to take decent selfies, how Tinder works, explains online etiquette and edibles, Venmo and UberPool. She asks me what it’s like to have a kids and a husband, to be “settled.”

Then it enters the upstairs room, to rest beside my grandmother, a Korean War widow who sold her home and bid farewell to clan and country, arriving in Arkansas to raise two children while their parents worked, who surrendered her strength in the last days of 1988 to a second stroke, but not before teaching me how to read a love letter.