Reflections on local intentions in this eighth year of my Boston residency, and a long melancholy weekend at the end of summer, has pushed me to think about what my forward intentions actually are. Now that I’m done with grad school (*weeps with relief*), doing the whole “emerging professional” thing at a job a genuinely like, married with two cats, I’m like … so what’s next, life?

I never really had a plan, per se. I mean, I almost didn’t go to college? I was emotionally allergic to school and considered some sort of roguish apprenticeship instead. I wanted to run a writer’s colony in the U.P. (“upper peninsula” for you non-Michiganders), feed people and fix septic systems, maybe have a lot of time for hiking around with a compass in the back woods. Or maybe open a bookshop by the sea, with the writers tucked away upstairs in garret rooms overlooking the surf. Again: Tea, biscuits, quiet, thoughts, maybe a puppy and obviously cats.

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