September 24, 2026
A note:
My dear friend and collaborator Liz Kalloch died early Tuesday morning, September 22, 2026 from complications of cancer. There is so much I want to tell you about her, and it will come, as Liz might say, in dribs and drabs. For now, what I can say is how grateful I am to have been in her circle for almost 25 years. I have learned incalculable things about myself through our friendship, of course—how can one not, after such a generous swath of time?—but one of the gifts I received from her was a kinship through which delight was the primary currency. In particular, she shared with me a sense of marvel and wonder, of attentive joy and ebullient interest in the natural world. Liz truly mastered the art of observation, of finding the thread between one thing and another thing. She was a dot-connector, a meaning-maker, a painter whose palette filled the in-between spaces with color and shape and texture and so much beauty. I am so glad I was able to be with her until the very end. I will miss her terribly. I am already missing her. Here is a poem she inspired more than a year ago. I’m re-sharing it here.
animal kingdom (2025)
Liz calls the chickadees her boyfriends. Mornings, I glower
at the squirrel darting near the feeder, say “Hey now!” at each
advance, but really, the little guy is pretty cute, and any sternness
evaporates before I get halfway through my coffee. Yesterday,
walking through the woods, I eyed the snow for deer prints, wanting
the family to appear, come toward me, eat an apple out of my hands.
Of course, I wasn’t carrying any apples. When do I ever carry apples?
Lately, I’ve noticed the ducks sticking close together at the shore,
but when I arrive they skitter away, and I see the interference my body
makes among the rocks, the untidy ripple of my footsteps. One day,
I hope I figure out what the cat is trying to tell me when she stares,
unblinking, into my face. For now, I make soft cooing noises at her
and offer space on my chest. “Come here,” I murmur, because I’ll take
all the closeness I can get, and when her small weight descends,
it seems I might be onto something.