The Feast that Follows Famine

I called Anna Lefler as the sun was setting, and we talked as the sun fell down—my eye on the purpled sky and the silhouetted tree (all its buds still in a clench). Purpled to dark, dark to the only lit thing being the moon, which is full and gorgeous this night. Have you gone outside? Have you seen it?

I'd been telling Anna about my day—an up and down day, intense from its four a.m. start. I'd been saying, Once upon a time I wrote a book that I believed in, a very different kind of book. I'd been saying, Today, Anna, on the very edge of this edgy day, I received an extraordinary letter about that book. A letter. A validation. A surge of hope. Hope, Anna, I said. A new moon rising.

I will not cook tonight, I said.

I will wear my new shoes, I said.

And you will write, Anna said, about the famines.

About the famines?

About how we have to fully own the famines, because after the famines come feasts.