A home at the end of the world.

[Zara kimono jacket + Alice and Olivia leather leggings + Sam Edelman boots + Kain t-shirt + vintage squash blossom necklace]

We pass a big farm. Its outbuildings are anchored on a sea of swaying wheat, its white clapboard is molten in the late, hazy light. All three of us, even Carlton, keep quite as we pass. There is something familiar about this place…

…Cows graze, autumn trees cast their long shade. I tell myself we are farmers, and also somehow rich enough to drive a convertible. The world is gaudy with possibilities…

…When I ride in a car at night, I believe the moon is following me…

“We’re home,” I shout as we pass the farm. I don’t know what I am saying. It’s the combined effects of wind and speed on my brain.

-Michael Cunningham, my literary idol, from his novel A Home at the End of the World, from which is taken one of my favorite short stories of all time, White Angel.

In rereading this magnificent work, I was struck at how closely the first page mirrors the 4 trips I make each week, back and forth to Saratoga for work. Your brain can grow long, nimble legs on rides like that. Sometimes, I don’t know where it gets off to. I’ll wait in the car, in the driveway, long after I’ve taken the keys from the ignition, summoning it back.

It’s repetitive, isn’t it? This conversation I’m having with myself about the (mal)adjustment of this move. It’s just where my head is at: knocking around between these biweekly bookends of intimidating introspection. I see the cows, conferring, heads bowed, with steamy breath; I know the molten white of sunset on snow. I’ve been followed by the moon. And on each return, each steep ascent—I feel like I’m approaching the end of the world.  It’s beautiful and scary, all at once.

-Carey

p.s. Before you approach the above novel, do yourself a huge favor and pick up my bible, the Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction. Too many fantastic works of magic to even begin to go into here. Then come back and tell me your favorite.

p.s.s. if you don’t give a rip, but you like the jacket, here’s another kimono jacket from Mara Hoffman in one of my favorite posts.