Indira Ganesan, Sunrise from Cessna, 2013

A quick, unstylish, and somewhat ungrammatical run-down of my past year:

2013 began with dancing in a roomful of relatives on New Year’s Eve to gangnam style.

A new job at Emerson brought me four classes and fifty-five students, a three hour commute, and more fun than I could have predicted.

I began to visit the local animal shelter and became a “pet socializer” which meant I played with kittens two hours a day a few times a week.

This led to fostering a family of four  kittens and  a mama cat. I dived head-first into a sea of cat-related websites, debating food choices and toys, scratchers and treats. I found an über stylish cat waste option that was not in my horizon, but acquired three mod litterboxes that fullfilled my designer dreams. Three kittens got adopted, and one and her mom are at home with me.

Mourning my yoga practice and sangha, I attended a three-day yoga weekend workshop hoping to kickstart my practice.  The sum of my non-workshop days of actually practicing yoga equalled, let’s say, seven. It is extraordinarily easy not to practice. This makes me sad, obviously.

I planted my second garden with a few new specimen’s: jupiter’s beard; delphiniums; and three small roses from the deeply discounted section of my local garden center.

What I am really supposed to be doing is working on a new novel. I came up with five possible titles to, all variations on the word “garden.” It is a sequel to the one that is out, because I cannot bear to part with the characters just yet. .

I applied for three grants, and three jobs. My third year at the FAWC residency has begun, making me wonder where I will live next autumn. This line of thought inevitably makes me wonder why I don’t abscond to Paris; why I don’t have a degree from Oxford; and why my new books are not stocked in bookstores.

The fall brought unexpected sorrow with the passing of a dear friend, and an aunt and uncle.

Soon after, I hit a deer in an accident that has me anticipating accidents everywhere on the road. My Emerson students were so sympathetic that they prevented me from being a wreck.

In an effort to change the energy, I cut my hair. It did not leave me looking French.

Random House became Random House/Penguin and asked for haiku written for City Harvest. I contributed nine, stopping when they quickly reached their goal of 2K.

The best part of the year was seeing As Sweet As Honey with a gorgeous cover. An edition in India soon appeared, and this fall, Vintage brought out not only the paperback but reissued my last novel, Inheritance, as well. I gave eighteen readings in eighteen cities in eleven months, and can do eighteen more.

Thank you, readers, for reading this blog, and posting comments. May the new year be joyeous.

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