this tight knot.

All I want is to write something that says it all. One perfect sentence that describes the strange and winding emotions in my brain or heart or stomach (or wherever they live) that exist right now, in this moment. I want you to see me sitting here on my couch next to my sleeping cat, wearing my work dress covered by an enormous flannel shirt. I’m not wearing shoes. I’m drinking red wine. I’m listening to the wind (the crazy wind!) blow in gusts, over and over.

I can’t settle, can’t find the mark. Like always, I go too long without writing and this tight knot forms inside of me. How to loosen it? It’s slow work.

I ran 6 miles last weekend in a cold rain. I ran to Lake Michigan and back home again. When I got back, I took a shower, put on four layers of clothes, and then climbed into bed and put my head under the covers.

I’ve been having vivid dreams lately, the kind where you wake up and turn the images of the dream over and over in your head. It’s unusual for me. A few weeks ago, I dreamt I was in Washington DC when the cherry blossoms were blooming. In my dream, I was driving along a stretch of road, looking at the blooms, and crying at how beautiful it was and how much I missed it.

Strange, right? I never felt like I belonged in DC or like it was my place, but I have been caught off guard again and again over the past year at how much I miss it. Now it will join my catalog of places I used to be, which is quite a volume. I don’t belong to any of the places, but they live on in me. I think C.S. Lewis wrote something to this effect, something about how we don’t live life as if we’re passing through train stations. Something of each place, each person, and each experience becomes a part of us.

I never think much of people reading what I write here, but if you do (if you are!), sorry to have been absent. It was stubbornness, I think, or maybe weariness. It’s always a struggle to figure it out: WHY AM I HERE AND WHAT AM I DOING? In the blog, in writing, in life.

As my goodwill token and proof that I am still thinking deeply, even when I’m not writing, here are some things:

• The Weeds (This is per Jacob’s recommendation! So nerdy and perfect for long runs.)
• Billions (I found Damian Lewis grating in Homeland, but I love him in this.)
• How to Cook a Moose (Maine and food and one of my favorite writers. I’ve been reading this book at night and fighting urges to jump out of bed to cook a meal. Actually, one night I did.)
• The New Jim Crow (Required reading, I'd say.)

And finally, Rebecca Solnit (and Brain Pickings), as always, hitting the mark. Especially these words:

It’s important to say what hope is not: it is not the belief that everything was, is, or will be fine. The evidence is all around us of tremendous suffering and tremendous destruction. The hope I’m interested in is about broad perspectives with specific possibilities, ones that invite or demand that we act. It’s also not a sunny everything-is-getting-better narrative, though it may be a counter to the everything-is-getting-worse narrative. You could call it an account of complexities and uncertainties, with openings.