Speaker Interview: Preston Yancey

Folding laundry. I have an inexplicable, psychological aversion to the process of successfully transferring clothes from the dryer to my closet or dresser or even, let’s be honest, the middle of the bedroom floor. My fiancée informs me this will be an untenable position to maintain in our future. We’ll see.

I would learn how to actually use Evernote. I’m not kidding. “I will learn how to use Evernote” is my version of the “I will read my Bible all the way through every day this year” New Year’s resolution. Every time I open the app on my computer or my phone I end up just staring at it in bewilderment and panic and then shut it down. I am convinced that I won’t be awriter, italicized and everything, until I learn how to use it.

(I suppose I was supposed to say something like “to speak Spanish” or “to parallel park” or “to not always have to have the last word” but, this is raw honesty.)

Madeleine L’Engle. She’s one of my patron saints, at least I think of her as a prayer of my prayers with me when I ask God big questions about vocation and work and whether or not to click publish on my latest blog post. Her journals taught me how to tell truth and her fiction taught me how to discern the difference between truth and fact.

Complain about how little free time I have, then watch the latest episode of Veep, Modern Family, or Parks and Rec while menu planning or catching up on all my Voxer messages.

A keeper of my children’s confidences.

Bali. I’ve had the opportunity to spend a summer in the East before and it was one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life. I’m aching to go back to that side of the world and sit in the stillness of the beauty there. And the food. Good Lord, the food.

There’s a lot of sun out these days, so let’s pick things up and go sit out on the roof of the apartment building and listen to Juliette Gréco on a record player and drink Greek wine—too white and too bright but light and free.

We’ll have an appetizer of grilled eggplant sliced thin and stuffed with manouri, mint, and baby heirloom tomatoes; salt and bay leaf crusted grilled lamb chops, a salad of watermelon, feta, and black olive, piles of salty roast lemon potatoes, and some homemade pita. For desert, a glass of Campari — or strong Greek coffee, if you’d prefer — and some almond baklava with rose water and orange blossom and honey from the local farm, cut into small bites to savor.

Basically: come over. There’s always something in the works and always room in the apartment or on the roof or in the park or wherever.