“The problem people have is not in the experience of grief itself. The problem is how to learn to accept the unthinkable.” from Around a Dark Corner by Amanda Petrusich in the June 29th, 2026, issue of The New Yorker
A Short Walk?
Hi There,
Is it possible that we could meet and go for a short walk and talk when you have a little time? I meant it when I said I would let you go when it was appropriate, and I have unfollowed you on Instagram and won’t text again, but this ghosting feels cruel to me, and I don’t think you are cruel Mr. B.
The hardest part is losing the friendship and not knowing why; that’s the part that is killing me. It felt there for a time that we were pretty good at hashing things out. But maybe I was delusional. And you, it seems, are in the center of a whirlwind. So maybe even this attempt at communication is a mistake.
The reason I was so interested in getting to know you at all was your seeming ability to accept things as they are, I thought you had something to teach me.
And teach me you have.
I won’t follow this email up so if you want this to be it, this is it, we call it here. And if you don’t see this email, then that is the fates at work as well.
Thank you for the sunlit days. I so hope that when you think back on them it is with fondness, and maybe, maybe just a touch of chagrin.
I will.
noko
Been thinking a lot about agency lately. And how ghosting totally takes it away from half the participants in the interaction. I consulted Claude again this week on the craving for contact with “The Ghoster” and the advice I received was sound. Something we used to say when interacting with folks who were quitting smoking.
Every time a craving arises and passes without responding to it, incrementally, oh so incrementally, the craving weakens. I have been holding that thought all week.
But what makes me mad is not to have a say in it all. And there are two parties here and one of them is me. Hence the above email, which I sent early evening yesterday. I have a whole lifetime behind me of doing foolish emotional human things and have survived them and gone on to have more adventures. One more won’t make that much difference. Even if it all feels so darn high stakes.
It always does.
So, the marker on the craving clock starts here. A marker of my choice, not his.
Yesterday late morning I was deeply immersed in a kind of planning activity as I feel like a huge shift is happening in my life with the change in roles with the League and the end of all this falling in love falderal, looking at all my lists from this year and last and pulling out what matters to me now and what I want to focus on going forward.
My phone was in the other room. I get a notification on my iPad, (no sorry, it was not Mr. B.) that I had a text from Walt. He had called, left a message, texted as well, and when I called him back my heart in my throat thinking something had happened to Mr. B., found Walt had emailed as well.
He wants us, his board, to give him the go ahead to publish under “our” imprint a book of interpretations of meditations of a 17th century mystic named Thomas Traherne and could he bring the manuscript over for me to review. WTF???
I think Walt might be coming slightly unglued. He has never been over here before. He dropped me off once and picked me up on that fateful day late last month when I got so angry at him, I was almost spitting. I was like…uh, could you mail it to me?
He was a little taken aback, but said yeah, he could. I know he goes to the local post office a lot to mail stuff to guys in prison.
I just need to extricate myself skillfully from this whole thing. Wow.
In the meantime, not this coming week, but next I am taking off from both teaching and League stuff, and I want to focus on my apartment and the poetry.
The last thing I want to be doing then is mooning about the place listening to love songs like I have been doing this last week and instead deliberately and with agency lay the paving stones for the path ahead.
Oh goddesses, help me make it so.
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