Click here for “Dead Moon, Brooklyn” — a finalist in Tupelo Quarterly’s contest in 2016:  https://www.tupeloquarterly.com/dead-moon-brooklyn-by-rose-auslander/

I used to work in New York City’s financial district — which meant breakfast, lunch, and dinner in a perpetual construction zone. After 13 years of keep-out signs, even where there were no signs, I realized I was I subconsciously keeping myself out. So I began to look for anything that felt like it could open doors. Like this alligator on a wall near our old house, perhaps an escapee from the Gowanus Canal:

I used to feel that if I could fit together each piece of spring, the weather would follow.

I always did my part and got the puzzles done. After that, it was up to the weather to cooperate . . .  I would always keep the puzzle on our kitchen table until it did. Who knows, maybe this year I’ll give it a try.

February is the month of ice — the 28 days I spend dreading I’ll freeze permanently.  It would be realist to worry about frostbite, but no, I have nightmares that I’ll ice over into The Incredible Frozen Woman, perpetually on display at some Lapland ice bar.

So what do I do about it?  I ice skate.  Go figure.

In “interesting times,” I try everything I can to encourage any good that may come.  A first step is to make the pictured New Year’s log, a fallen souffle filled with fresh whipped cream and rolled in powdered sugar and cocoa. I’ll be thinking of more sweeteners as the year goes on . . .

Our old neighborhood in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, is an over-the-top holiday kind of place. Giant Snoopy’s, enormous snowmen, singing reindeer — the works. Raising families in these shoulder-to-shoulder houses and narrow streets, people are usually ready to celebrate at any excuse. But some years, it is impossible to put aside sadness.

I am leaving this post up in a lasting tribute to those who have perished in shootings, still praying you sleep in peace, Charlotte, David, Olivia, Josephine, Ana, Dylan, Madeleine, Catherine, Chase, Jesse, James, Grace, Emilie, Jack, Noah, Caroline, Jessica, Avielle, Benjamin and Rachel, Dawn, Nancy, Anne Marie, Lauren, Mary, and Victoria of Sandy Hook, and all who have lost their lives to guns.

Isn’t it funny how we can find time for what we truly want to do? I find time to write because I want to. I love writing. The real question is how I find time to do everything else. My friend, writer Amy Gutman, once asked me and a number of other writers how we found time to write — and everyone said the same.

It’s gotten to the point where if I’m struggling to do something, anything, I stop and ask myself whether I want to do it. If not, I ask if there’s an alternative. That’s why my house is messy. I’d rather write a poem than have a spotless, soulless home. I think this joyful Buddha would agree.

Our old neighborhood in Brooklyn is being developed to the max, with high-rise condos lining the Gowanus Canal. It’s worth remembering the devastation of that area after Hurricane Sandy and how vulnerable it–and the rest of NYC–is to another big storm.

In our corner of Brooklyn, it took weeks for Carroll Park to reopen after the hurricane.  When it did, a venerable tree knocked over by Sandy became temporary playground equipment. But the park has never been as cool in the summer as it used to be, now that there’s no shade from all the trees Sandy knocked down.

The Wall Street office where I worked at the time was closed for a week due to flooding. And when it reopened, there was no heat. We all typed for a week with fingerless gloves. Sky Rink, Chelsea Piers, was closed for weeks, with the ice compressors under four feet of water. Near home, Red Hook — which the City had worked so hard to turn from a slum into a tourist port — was devastated and took years to build back.

NYC considered various steps to guard from future storms, but didn’t pursue them. Apparently, the strategy is to just hope for good weather . . .

October 30, 2012.  When Hurricane Sandy hit Brooklyn, the Gowanus Canal jumped its banks for the first time in over a hundred years. By 11 p.m., the Gowanus floodwater had reached the bottom of our old block (as shown above)–a stew of pollution you don’t want in your home. We were uphill from the flood, but the water was only half a block away from us. Our internet, TV and phone were out, so it was hard to tell what was going on–and even harder to sleep as sirens wailed.

In the morning, connections to the world were restored and the street outside our house was still dry, though a huge tree had been uprooted. When we looked in our backyard, our chimney top was sitting on the grass. A bit scary, because it had been installed to curb a carbon monoxide outbreak. My husband re-attached it to the roof as best he could–and fortunately, the winds since Sandy have blown more gently.

The miracle was how quickly the floodwaters of the Gowanus receded–we soon could see our usual grafitti. But many neighbors had months of hard repair work ahead . . .