The Things We Need to Fix

And how it makes us feel.

Hi friends.

This is another one of those letters that isn’t about writing but it is about solving problems, and you never know what can make something click in your brain. And I swear I turn it into a writing prompt at the end, if you can make it that far.

While I was away at the residency for the month I rode a rental bike everywhere in the sunshine, and I recalled how much I liked riding at home. I had forgotten about my bike which sat, forlornly, with flattened tires in the back shed next to the washer and dryer. When I moved at the beginning of the year I used it a few times but then I just locked it away and never had the time to pick it back up again. I’ll bike when I get home, I thought in Florida, as I cruised happily around town.

Then it was cold and rainy when I got back, so there was no rush to hop on that bike, and also there was a bigger distraction, which was the dryer had broken while I was gone, had perhaps been in a state of slowly breaking for a while by then. You know what it’s like to say a silent prayer whenever you go to use a machine hoping each time it’ll start up again? That was me and this dryer.

Anyway, I took a deep breath and went online to buy a new one, but in fact it took me a few days to do it because I was frankly in denial about the money I was about to spend on something that, in my experience as a homeowner, would most certainly break again in a few years, and then I thought about America for a while and all its problems, what works and doesn’t work here, and does the purchase of a major appliance cause an existential crisis in everyone or is it just me?