Behind-the-Scenes Look: The End of the Memoir

Everything is possible.

Hi, Friend.

While searching through my phone for photos from a specific time, I came across these pictures from January 2020, right before the world shut like a door. I was in Florida teaching a weeklong workshop at a poetry festival, and that week my poem “Bride” was published in The New Yorker. No real spoilers here, but if you’ve read You Could Make This Place Beautiful, this is the experience I describe at the end of the book.

On that day I stopped at the news shop, picked up two copies of the New Yorker, and carried them down to the beach in my tote bag. I sat down on a bench, pulled off my boots and socks, then walked barefoot across the sand to the slap and fizz of the waves breaking.

I sat down in a lounge chair and opened the magazine to my poem, the thin pages flapping in the wind.

I stopped at the drawbridge that lifted so the boats could go under. The whole street lifted up right in front of me. Nothing seemed impossible anymore. Everything was possible.

I love the little toddler sound in the video when the street lifts up like magic. I think there was a woman with a child in a stroller beside me.

It had been a grueling couple of years for me, but that day everything felt possible. So much feels wrong right now—many of us are struggling, and the country and state where I live are taking us back in time in terrifying ways. I have to remind myself of this: So much is still possible. This place could be beautiful, right?

Take good care out there.

Love,
Maggie