Sy Safransky

June 2007

And the perfect sentence wandered through a foreign city where no one understood a word she said.

May 2007

I inadvertently stepped on my cat Nimbus in the dark this morning. I’ve already apologized, and she doesn’t appear hurt, but I feel as if I’ve started the day by invading another country. Would a jury of my peers convict me for such a careless act?

Friend Of The Sun

A Thousand Elephants

This is The Sun’s thirty-third anniversary issue. How grateful I am that this improbable dream continues; that my ardor for the work is undiminished. I’m married to The Sun, I expect, till death do us part.

The Full Catastrophe

Unless you show up to write, you don’t get to experience the heartache and the joy of writing; you don’t get to drop into a place without words and then, miraculously, find just the right words for what you discover there.

November 2006

If terrorism is a threat to democracy, so is errorism: refusing to admit blunders; twisting other people’s words; consistently making statements known to be untrue.

October 2006

The rain hits the tin roof, a sound Norma loves. Too loud, I insist, unable to sleep. What do you call the rain when two people can’t agree what the rain sounds like?

September 2006

My daughter Mara has a suspicious lump in her breast; a biopsy is scheduled for later this week. If the lump turns out to be benign, I can go back to worrying about how far behind I am in my work or about the accelerated pace of global warming.

August 2006

I didn’t want to cry, so the sadness stayed in my body. Then, instead of feeling sad, I felt anxious, like a bird trapped inside a house whose windows are boarded up.

July 2006

When I went running this morning, I thought to myself, Not bad for a man my age. Then, as clearly as if she were running beside me, I heard a recently departed friend whisper: Enough already. The body is just an address. Nice house. Lovely neighborhood. Congratulations. Just an address.