The year that everyone dies.

 I like that it is the time of year to hear nightbirds.

 It's funny the way that years move and seem to echo each other. You find yourself going, "didn't I just do this?" This first week of March, dealing with the looming death of a grandfather, it feels like it did doing the exact same thing in 2017 - a sense of remove, a sense of uncertainty about where to be, what to be doing, and the ultimate futility. I even wrote about it here in probably much the same language.

I have not seen death the way that many people in their lives see death, but what I've seen of it is this: it's always ugly, it's always ignoble. There's no good death. There's never been one I've seen that I would have chosen for myself, least of all the one I tried on for size, the few I've brushed up against over the years. It's not one of those games where you play your cards right and at the end, a prize falls out, a trophy for all your carrots and exercise and going to bed on time. 

In this case, I worry more for the living, for my mom and how she will handle it. 

I feel a vast lack of concentration. Spin me back to 2017 and what? I'll be skinnier, more stable, less mature. Less stable? I don't know. I'm all of these people, and I'm the same person. My friend sends me a story from my teenage years, she says "I thought you'd want to see this even if you already read it - you're all over the comments" and indeed, I was, the ghost of my younger self in digital format. I want to ask her "why would you make me look at this?" She seems to have such good memories of me from that time and I don't know how to parse it. But I was so unhappy!

Two titmice (titmouses?) are sitting on the suet outside my home office window. Now we're back to describing bird behavior. It's like I never left. I want someone to ask how I feel, and I'd say "Okay. A little tired." I've had this stupid weird chest thing going on for what feels like weeks, and I couldn't sleep. I lost my voice entirely this weekend, and my friends said I sounded cute, which I will love them for. I think it's getting better, but I thought that a half dozen times before now, too. 

"At least," I begin to type instinctively, always looking for an "at least" to add in there, something about the spring, or about my yard, or the birds, or the weather, or the moon. 

 Rabbit, rabbit, March.

 There is something about this time of year. You can be walking and the air will change because you passed by the little creek that runs through your town, becoming suddenly breathy and as cold as a grave, even if it was 75 today. The hill rises and there is a pocket of warm air. 

Another thing about that - there is a similar sense of myself that usually comes in the evenings, when I'm sitting out in the open air or maybe standing in my kitchen fixing dinner, when I can see myself clearly like I am a piece of writing that I muddled over all night and then woke up the next morning and could read it like for the first time. I tend to like myself in this bare, wane spring light. The taste of strawberries. Maybe it's a little early for that.

I have been waking up terribly early, at 5 or 6, and getting up to spend a few hours with myself rather than simply sleeping. I'm tired of being asleep. I want to be funny and sharp and pretty again. 

 I can tell the seasons are changing because the birds are more active. Also, it's like 60 degrees. 

To my parents' this weekend. I hope I hear some coyotes. 

 I'm sorry that I'm not really writing in this the last few weeks. I want to, I'm just struggling to get my brain together.