Daily Dose

From Essays One, by Lydia Davis

PROBABLY

"My mother's was probably the hand I held most often, during certain years of my life, first when my hand was small and hers was larger, and last when she was often lying on her bed and I was sitting beside her, her hand softer and weaker and more crooked than mine."

From Meeting Abraham Lincoln

A Caricature

Daily Dose

From Essays One, by Lydia Davis

THE LETTERS

"The letters spoke, at the time that he wrote them, from out of his absence when he was no more than geographically remote, and by habit invisible; they speak as distinctly now that he is truly gone, though what is also gone now, as it was not then, is the possibility of replying to him, except in one's thoughts."

From Maurice Blanchot Absent

Daily Dose

From The Collected Stories, by Lydia Davis

TRANSLATING, SOMETIMES

"I sometimes try to find an equivalent in English before I really understand the French.  Then I realize that I don't understand the French, even after trying several times, and I cast my eye rather listlessly here and there within the paragraph hoping the meaning of it will fall into place by itself, which it sometimes does.  But today it does not, and then my mind wanders."

From Thyroid Diary