I took some off from writing. It didn’t feel like there was enough space for it. It is a great joy for me to spend time doing so, but sometimes such joys don’t feel appropriate. Ever since Mick died, there has felt a need for a pause--in the context of grief, it feels strange and improper to look towards hope. That does not mean that grief is hopeless... instead, that grief should be respected, greeted, and invited in at the appointed time. And so it has been in my life. Time needed to be afforded to reorder my world to the new state of things. I needed to clean my room, so to speak.
And now I feel as though my chores are completed. There will be more mourning, for both Mick and others, but I have opened the blinds. Today is bright, with a gentle breeze, and what leaves that are left still to fall to the curb are delicately colored in shades of orange and yellow that celebrate the year they have lived. It is a good time for a walk, to bind myself to the world once again. It is a good time to imagine the possibilities and certainties that matter.