Becoming Duchess Goldblatt

by Duchess Goldblatt

“When you have no one to put their arms around you, you must put your arms around yourself,”

How could I have been so careless? Men can be careless, not women. Women have to hold the world steady, or the whole operation will spin right off its axis.

Are you sure you want to do this?” one of them asked me on my wedding day. “Yes, of course I want to get married,” I’d said. She rolled her eyes and snorted. “You’re not getting married, though, right, as much as you’re becoming the single mother of a seven-year-old boy.” She thought I was signing up for a lifelong burden instead of a partner. I laughed. I repeated that story for years afterwards. I thought

she was joking. It’s possible, in hindsight, that I’ve never u...

I hoped to be married and I hoped to have a child, just one child—to be an only child was my own lifelong dream; I’d always thought siblings were about the worst thing you could ever do to a kid. Being married meant everything. It meant I would have safely navigated childhood and set down an anchor in a...

The rug had been pulled out from under me, and beneath that the floorboards, and beneath that the foundation, and the ground, the earth itself, even the 5,000-degree ball of iron and nickel at its core was a little shaky.

Remember when you dreamt you were in love and when you woke, you felt the loss? That was me.

There are opinions I have gathered along the way through experience and observation, like anyone, and then there are fundamental truths that I know on a cellular level.

In my mind’s eye, I can see the piece of paper in my head on which the story is constantly being written.

Writers can be a lot of fun at parties, but word to the wise: Keep an eye on your good memories. They’ll strip them down for parts.

I’m headed up a mountain today to see a famed holy man about some faith healing. I’m not sure what his ailments are, but I’ll do what I can.

Gather all the icicles you can carry and bring them inside. Nurse them back to health in the kitchen sink. Cheer for them when they move on.

Nobody expects the heavens to open up, for the stars in the sky to turn around and make a wish on us.

If you hold an empty wineglass up to your ear, you can hear the sound of Duchess Goldblatt laughing.

It’s always the case that when you tell a secret to half a couple, you’ve told them both.

I relaxed into the lack of expectations. It was ephemera, a sunset, a shooting star; I could marvel at its beauty and be content to watch it go by. Drop the pearl back into the ocean and it will disappear beneath the water. The universe will reclaim what’s not yours.

“Can’t you try to be kind to him?” my father would say to me. “With all the great gifts you’ve been given in life, can’t you be compassionate to your brother, who’s been given less?” “You should have given me something I can work with,” I’d tell him. “He’s the one you’ve been given,” my father would say.

Tonight in Crooked Path, we’ll all visit our dear ones’ graves and lay wreaths made of apostrophes: the symbol of something missing.

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.

Let’s ask ourselves if our desired outcomes are in alignment with our behaviors. My wineglass isn’t refilling itself, folks.

They’re razing Crooked Path’s Möbius strip mall today. Delicate job. The place has no exits. We haven’t been sure who’s inside. Or outside.

Choices are a luxury. We forget that sometimes, don’t we? Not everybody gets to have choices.

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.

My father used to try to tell me to never say anything about anyone that I wouldn’t want them to overhear.

But if you believe that you’re called to never cause pain to another human being, it won’t be a hard choice.”