valeria luiselli, in the the new yorker:

When you are still in the early stages of constructing a story—whether in life or in literature—a good beginning is probably one that opens possibilities, rather than narrows them. But in literature, like in life, you never know if a beginning is good or not until much later; sometimes not until the story is finished. It’s a type of knowledge that comes only with hindsight.

when my dog dies, i assign everything to her. the bottle of tequila my brother brings the day i put her down after a long, sleepless evening of unbearable wailing. the large green leafed plant— a peace lily—  my sister and her family send me, along with some flowers and a card expressing their love for cocoa bean and sadness at her loss. her bed. her blanket. an old concert shirt from the last time i saw the national with an on-off love and we kissed to “i am easy to find.” it’s the shirt i hold my pup with as she loses her breath and begins to weigh down my arms. her old food bowl and water bowl. her harness. her leash. her leftover treats. the syringe i used to shoot her seizure medicine into her mouth three times a day for the last three years of her life. and the medicine that went into it. levetiracetam. 

i keep it all.

and of course her christmas tree. 

i buy the tree at home depot during the holiday season after beanie passes. a small booger with its own pot. it costs $45; my sister pays for it. 

what i want is to make cocoa bean a tree of her own, even though i have no real interest in the holiday, especially as its become more of a stage for familial anxiety the older we all get. but this tree, it’ll be hers. i buy dog themed ornaments, a small string of colorful lights. and under it i place her old toys. a miniature squeaky tennis ball. a plush cactus.

i light a candle.

for my cocoa bean.

in the years since, i’ve stressed about keeping this tree alive. christmas trees are meant for dying. are already dead the second we tie them onto the tops of our cars and lug them home. they are meant to be put on the sidewalks on december 29th— maybe january 2nd for the more christmas enthused— for garbage collectors to pick up. 

but cocoa bean’s tree is meant to live, its roots still intact and growing. 

i water her regularly, even though it’s a hassle to pick her up, even though her pine needles poke me and leave a trail behind me on the walk to the kitchen. eventually, i put her outside in the shade where she’s easier to water with a hose. mom offers to take her to tucson with her where she can better care for her, maybe even transplant her into her garden. but i say no.

you see. i’m the one that has to make sure her needles stay green, her soil moist. 

(i worry i will forget the shape of her small body held in mine)

and yet i’m the one who forgets. i’m the one who lets her branches start to dry. 

in may, we move. from long beach to a smaller, nicer place in san gabriel valley. 

i bring it all with me. her hardened leftover treats. her collar. her bed. her other bed. the small display of her paw print the vet made for me. a small glass bottle of her fur. 

her ashes. 

and of course, her tree, though i don’t know what to do with it. too little space in the apartment. too beat down by sunlight on the patio. i decide to place it in a corner outside where the sun only reigns for a couple hours a day. 

the new pup, pinto bean, and i settle our worn bodies. unpack. make sense of our new space.

and there they are. two little birds, one with a burst of red on her chest, the other a muted brown. i assume they are taking bits of bean’s drying branches off with them to create a home for themselves. they return often. pinto dashes to them each time i let her onto the patio, and they flutter off. 

the next time i try to water my girl, i peak inside to find the beginnings of a nest. 

i drench her limbs with hopes of bringing her green back.

there’s got to be some life left in there if i can just will it. 

two days later, 

i return to my baby girl

a bed of four tiny eggs 

buried in her shrubbery

ta-nehisi coates, writing at vanity fair.

It is often said that The Homeland is skeptical of immigrants, but more precisely, The Homeland is skeptical of aliens. Asylum-seekers from Gaza fleeing a genocide have no place in The Homeland; Afrikaners suffering the indignity of post-apartheid are welcome. The Homeland is covetous of Northern Europeans, but regards Somali Americans as “garbage.” “Why can’t we have some people from Norway, Sweden, just a few?” Trump recently said. “But we always take people from Somalia, places that are a disaster, right? Filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime.” The criteria for these distinctions—between putative immigrant and indelible alien—are not complicated; for above all, The Homeland is a racist project.*

hanif abdurraquib, writing at the paris review:

Falling in love can be an isolating act, even if another person is present while it is happening. It’s all so interior, based on many moving parts and internalized messiness. It isn’t always like this, of course. But when it has been like that for me, I’ve come out of it happily exhausted, wondering why anyone would want to do this more than once in a lifetime. But, of course, when whatever love I’ve claimed fades, I find myself renewed, in search of the feeling once again. I have found ways to renew it even while still in love. Last fall, there was a point where I had a crush on the leaves, for all their twirling and kaleidoscopic showing off. I have a crush on the first few days of daylight saving time in either direction, when the sun does a real generosity and tricks me into staying out longer and later. Or, when it abruptly exits early, reminding me to bow to my true self. I have a crush on the way the familiar buildings of Columbus, Ohio, poke their faces through a puffy wall of clouds when I descend into the city after being away for too long, and it is always too long. I have a crush on too many sentences in too many books by too many people to name. Since I have already decided that sweat is romantic, friends, let me say that I also have a crush on the feeling of night air cooling the sweat off skin when a body pours out of a hot and packed space. I am beginning to have a crush on crystals, I think. Definitely obsidian, but perhaps a few of the others that look like miniature caves. And, yes, I have a crush on memories that were surely not as beautiful as I have made them out to be. Because that’s the whole trick.