What I’ve Been Up To, Lately

What I mean when I say nothing is that I’ve been driving my kids to and from school, making half-hearted collages and tiny towers of small rocks. What I mean is that I’ve been crawling back into bed at 9am, closing my eyes and letting my mind drift. Sketching pigeons, skipping laundry, trying and failing to read. What I mean is that I’m still watering plants, still brushing my teeth, still buying food and putting it onto plates, still eating it even, though the effort required to do so is enormous. I’m holding very still, picturing sadness as a cat that I can comfort, that, once stroked, will settle. What I mean is that I’m waiting. For the light to return, for the fog to lift, for the wave to build and crest and crash all over again. I am in the pause before the next breath. The goo in the cocoon. Or maybe I’m still the caterpillar, in the midst of melting. I am grasping, even though I want to release. I am losing, and I have no choice. Everything falls away, gathers, disperses. Ends. Begins. This is the breath of the universe, making and unmaking and making again. This is my own breath, whipstitching my heart to the world, trembling toward whatever comes next.

What have you been up to? I hope you’re feeling more butterfly than goo, but if you aren’t, we can wait for literal and metaphorical spring together. I have plenty of rocks for us all.