Notes from a week: I am standing in the kitchen on Tuesday, and it’s nearly black outside. I flip on the kettle. It’s only one p.m. A storm blows through. All day I wander around. It feels like something’s missing, but I can’t put my finger on it. I’m still in pain. I tell my daughter it’s like having the TV on all the time and trying to find quiet. My body is always buzzing with pain. *** I miss the sound of my own voice, the way it felt to hear it coming out of my mouth in ripples …
lyric essay
September 30
September ends like a box of melted crayons, color bleeding everywhere. Fall is finally here. I’m buried beneath it all, taking a deep breath and moment to rest. Bury me in leaves. Litter the blue sky with yellow and orange. The whole world is shifting and ever the question: am I paying attention? Sometimes I stop just to wonder. I stare out the window doing nothing, take a nap in the hammock, leaves fluttering around me. I feel my way, minute by minute. Rest is always on my to-do …
September 25
This was a week of pain. All my plans fell apart at the seams, threads unraveling everywhere, fabric unspooling on the floor. I was untethered, unmoored, adrift, bereft. My body hurt, my hip, a pain descending from my back. Every moment, the pain followed and I mostly ignored it. I saw the chiropractor a couple of times and convinced myself it would go away, no problem. But a month later, it’s a problem. I was awake half the night, no way to get comfortable. In the middle of the night, I …
September 21
Instead of sitting at my desk this morning, I sit at the kitchen table. The sun draws long lines through the bay window and warms my legs while I write. On the table are a pile of notebooks, my journal, three anthologies of short stories, a pile of sticky notes, and a sharpie. Tomorrow is the autumn equinox. There will be exactly one hundred days left in the year. A hundred round, perfect days and a new season. Sounds like the start of something. My mind starts to wander, a balloon …
September 17
6 a.m. Water. Psalm 22. Five minutes of silence. Pumpkin spice coffee. Affirmations: "When I write, I am..." Mary Oliver. My daughter wakes and ends the quiet. Today is the first day I will be alone in more than a month. Husband at work, kids at school. Yesterday I made a list so I won’t lose my way and end up on the couch all day. Unless the couch is where I need to be. I’m not sure yet. 7 a.m. Daughter on the bus, son still asleep. Big Magic. Write note: “Ideas are looking for human …