{"id":141552,"date":"2019-12-25T09:00:44","date_gmt":"2019-12-25T14:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=141552"},"modified":"2019-12-16T13:37:22","modified_gmt":"2019-12-16T18:37:22","slug":"the-crane-wife-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/25\/the-crane-wife-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Crane Wife"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>We\u2019re away until January 6, but we\u2019re reposting some of our favorite pieces from 2019. Enjoy your holiday!<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_138035\" style=\"width: 1010px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/thecranewife_1000.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-138035\" class=\"size-full wp-image-138035\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/thecranewife_1000.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"707\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/thecranewife_1000.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/thecranewife_1000-300x212.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/thecranewife_1000-768x543.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-138035\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Original illustration \u00a9 Daniel Gray-Barnett<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Ten days after I called off my engagement I was supposed to go on a scientific expedition to study the whooping crane on the gulf coast of Texas. Surely, I will cancel this trip, I thought, as I shopped for nylon hiking pants that zipped off at the knee. Surely, a person who calls off a wedding is meant to be sitting sadly at home, reflecting on the enormity of what has transpired and not doing whatever it is I am about to be doing that requires a pair of plastic clogs with drainage holes. Surely, I thought, as I tried on a very large and floppy hat featuring a pull cord that fastened beneath my chin, it would be wrong to even be wearing a hat that looks like this when something in my life has gone so terribly wrong.<\/p>\n<p>Ten days earlier I had cried and I had yelled and I had packed up my dog and driven away from the upstate New York house with two willow trees I had bought with my fianc\u00e9.<\/p>\n<p>Ten days later and I didn\u2019t want to do anything I was supposed to do.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/07\/16\/the-crane-wife\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Read more &gt;&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ten days after calling off her engagement, CJ Hauser travels to the Gulf Coast to live among scientists and whooping cranes. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1798,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[60329],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-141552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-of-2019"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Crane Wife by CJ Hauser<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ten days after calling off her engagement, CJ Hauser travels to the Gulf Coast to live among scientists and whooping cranes.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/25\/the-crane-wife-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" 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