always fears, you know.

Yesterday, in my empty kitchen, staring at I-don't-remember-what on my computer, I felt it with a rush: something I need to write about. I postponed for a few moments, made an omelette, dusted my bedroom, cleaned the toilet. And it was lost. Even now, more than twenty-four hours later, I can't remember what I was so longing to write about. There was a time I would have mourned such a loss, but not so much these days. I lost hold of an idea, but the brain that thought it up is still in my head. That idea or something like it or something better will come along again. It's much like Annie Dillard says, we shouldn't be afraid to use up good ideas as they come. We don't need to save them up, because more will come.

Stories build empathy and empathy build connection. Do you realize this? Do you know the power of a story? It isn't a luxury.

I have been thinking about stories quite a bit lately, thinking about the ways they weave all through our lives. Not just in a book or on a stage or flashing through a TV screen. But we live our lives as stories, we organize our thoughts and feelings as such, and our very way of thinking is driven by it. Why? I am ticking off books-to-read on the subject, and so longer grows my books-to-read list, as it has been doing since forever.

I am a writer tonight. A few good things have come along to remind me. Good words.

I feel sad sometimes that writing is less the form of common communication that it used to be. It's a sort of default for me, and often so much easier than talking straight from my mouth. I have been known to hang up a phone without saying anything I meant to, followed by an email or letter that says all the rest.

I get the urge to send people letters, to say things to them that don't come so easily out of my mouth. Not bad things, just deeper feelings, more easily expressed, by me, with a pen and paper.

So I regret that I don't have any real correspondence relationships in my life right now. It is a good way to talk to someone about real, good things.

But even still, I write letters. More often than not, I write them to get my blood moving again. For some reason, when I can't bear to write a word, switching to a letter makes it alright. I relax a little, and it is personal and to a person, and so I can write again. Sometimes that is very much what I have done here.

I had felt, over the past few months, that this space had grown stale and tiresome. But it hasn't. I just needed a deep breath of air so that I could dive back in. And I have always felt like this was a place where I wrote about writing, but looking back I see that it isn't. It is a place that I have written about living life and making sense of whatever creative urges you might feel. I think I will come back.

There are always fears, you know. At least in my life. Fear that I will say something that isn't quite understood, even misunderstood. Fear that someone will pass judgment on me, will think I am this-bad-thing and that-bad-thing instead of seeing who I really am. And it is true that writing demands some bravery. We may be misunderstood at any time, but when you display your writing, you are tempting fate for sure.

But I believe it's worth it. I think I'll tempt fate some more.