Good morning! The sky here is just now burning from light blue to bright around the eastern horizon — I’ve got my tea and candle, the quiet music and the slightly louder music of rush hour traffic out front. The puppy has her nose pressed against the material of her new bed, so that every time she exhales she sounds as though she has a cold with bad congestion.
In less than a week (the day after Fierce Hunger), I will be forty-one. Outside one of the returned sparrows (maybe) is trilling its good morning into the branches of the live oak tree. Inside the puppy comes to say hello to me and wriggles herself around and around and around with the joy of hands on her skin and fur. Outside a crow is craning its song into the high new sky, over the crowd of car noise and trainsong, well beneath the hymn of the airplane. This morning I am thinking about loneliness and solitude, and how one can have everything or nothing to do with the other. This morning I am alone but have no loneliness in my bones; I am breathing connection and friendship, grateful for these hours without company so that the introvert in me can breath her full and necessary skin out into the room unobserved. This morning I can love you best because you are not right here with me — I can hold all I know of who you are, hold it in my fingers, stroke each facet and nuance into the morning sunlight. I can trust that you will not disappear while I take time, separate from you, to reflect on our togetherness. Continue reading