Becoming Duchess Goldblatt

by Duchess Goldblatt

She started to attract more attention. Word of mouth brought her new “friends.” I had hardly any friends in real life at that point, but Duchess had plenty. She was always careful to remind people that she was fictional, that she only existed on social media, and, no, she wouldn’t be going to see their bands or attend their poetry readings or drop by their holiday parties. I didn’t get invited anywhere, nor did I maintain much interest in leaving the house, but Duchess was getting invitations all over the place. “I’m fictional, but my love is real,” she told

The human mind is kind. It will create blank spaces for itself. I think of them as little airbags in my mind, cushioning the tender places where the blows and bruises are.

Nobody’s ever read my aura, but if I had to guess, I’d say it’s probably light gray and covered with lint. I’m exhausted most of the time, impatient, distracted, visiting another neighborhood in my head, always with a slow current of sadness underneath. Duchess is white light. She’s fully present. She’s something else entirely.

Duchess is a friend to all humanity, which is all well and good as far as it goes, but I don’t mind telling you privately here that it can be a real drag for me. She loves the world. I try to love the world. I mean, in theory, I want to love the world and all humanity. I can certainly see how it would be a good idea.

Good manners are a social construct, weekends are a social construct, values and beliefs and democracy, all social constructs, all ideas that we have come to agree to in our various interactions with other humans over time.

When someone you love dies, you lose them in pieces over time, but you also get them back in pieces: little fragments of memory come rushing back through what they cared about, what brought them joy. If you’re lucky, you get little pieces back for the rest of your life.

Lots of people lose lifelong friends, lose their families, their husbands, their jobs, their money, their homes, their footing, their sense of self, their place in the world. They don’t go running around town sprouting extra personalities. I wouldn’t argue with you. I don’t know why it was. All I can tell you is that in my heart, in my mind, in my spirit: I broke. I broke into pieces. There are only tiny shards left now, a mosaic almost pretty if the pattern weren’t so irregular, in place of what was whole. Everything hurt except being Duchess. I remember how often I kept thinking, I want to go home, but then I’d remember there was no home anymore. I had a roof overhead but no soft place to land, and no one anywhere who had to let me in. I could retreat only into my own mind for relief. Only Duchess Goldblatt was the salve to my open wounds.

the voice is the mingling of the soul, the mind, and the body together, expressed through breath, which is life itself; how could any human voice not be sacred?

If you have the education, wits, and leisure time to pursue your own interests, you have it better than 99% of the people who ever lived.

Close your eyes and visualize the best possible outcome. When it’s not looking, grasp it by the neck and fling it into reality.