Category Archives: Uncategorized

On Missing People

Posted on April 17, 2020 by jillbpearlman

I miss people.  As a self-declared introvert, I’m surprised, pleasantly – I miss people badly.  The list of what I miss is endless.  I miss their clean smells, their dirty smells, their mop of hair, their prickly beards. The irony … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Sonnet for Seder during Lockdown

Posted on April 8, 2020 by jillbpearlman

Sonnet for Seder during Lockdown Nothing is new under the sun, not even confinement.  The sun is not new, narrow straits not new, the liberation story rolls like time in search of an ending.  With Passover we should be done but we keep … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The Introvert’s Guide to the New Reality

Posted on April 5, 2020 by jillbpearlman

“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” Ludwig Wittgenstein Of course we introverts have feelings.  We know that real grief is sometimes too deep for words.  The Covid-19 plague blew in with a whiplash of emotional states, laced … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Marfa: The lightness and drollness of being

Posted on March 11, 2020 by jillbpearlman

Marfa.  Its name precedes it as an art-oasis in the Chihuahuan Texan desert. It has a certain droll quality – and might suggest such drollness is part of its very nature. One can’t help but wonder, “What the hell are we doing … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Amurika, the Open Road

Posted on March 8, 2020 by jillbpearlman

The Canadian writer Dionne Brand says when you go on a trip, you leave the table, the book on the table, everything behind; the book and the table know you’ll be an entirely different person when you get back.   … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Santa Fe, La Bella

Posted on March 3, 2020 by jillbpearlman

Sometimes you miss a place as you’re there, and you’ve never been there before. Or Santa Fe, as my mother might say, slayed me. It isn’t hard to say why. 1) on my way to AWP, the literary conference this … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Everyday Life: Antidote to Political Poisons

Posted on February 16, 2020 by jillbpearlman

While making dinner — or reflecting excitedly on the importance of making dinner while sipping wine — I began to shape ideas that have been pressing on me during the week.  What had been expected and feared to happen in … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

The New Vertigo

Posted on January 26, 2020 by jillbpearlman

I like to write, but boy, do I have trouble at times settling down.  I love to write, even, but the other pole – the love of motion – makes it rough to sit at that desk.  I’ve got to … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

A Poem for 19 Days into the New Year

Posted on January 19, 2020 by jillbpearlman

19 Days into the New Year Time grows, after New Years, like a cauliflower– half handsome, half deformed, bloomingat its own isotropic rate.  On the 3rd we skatetowards war; a plane of travelers crashesin Iran; Down Under, animals, mostly sheep, … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Dionysian 2020

Posted on January 1, 2020 by jillbpearlman

There is a phrase I toyed with in French many years ago: “le ciel, c’est assis sur mes sourcils.” The sky is sitting on my brows. That famous gray Paris sky was hovering close to my head during winters when … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment