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. 

 Sometimes the only thing you need in your life is for someone you haven't spoken to in fifteen years to say, "I bet you were a really fun teacher." 

I actually was. I would make them tea every class. My slide shows were fucking funny, they really were. I had actual laughs. 

I feel bad. I am fucked up. I've been cleaning up glass for an hour. 

 "This house," I whisper to my windows. "is like Russia." 

You can say it one more time.

 Coming home to the house as a home owner for the first time after this weekend and finding the front window shattered. 

 My last morning as a renter. I'll be a home owner hopefully by 3pm today. Fittingly, the dog barfed everywhere. 

What to say that I haven't already said about what this means? What picture can I take? What small offerings are there to be made? 

I sit in my costco sweat pants and green top that always reminds me of elves. The morning was so cold that it hurt my face to walk in it. In my graveyard, they are taking down the trees. It's taken me a few days to understand that they aren't maintenancing them, they are harvesting them - taking away the huge hundred year old trunks, grinding up their stumps. They pulled out the old stumps too: every single one that I use to feed my crows and even the oyster mushroom stumps. I can't pretend that this doesn't make me sad, but then I think about how my neighbor just buried his son in that same space, and I'm sad about a tree? 

My feelings are muted right now. Even a dream has a hard time rattling me. I think it's the time of year, all the uncertainty and tragedy plus my seasonal depression. I have the feeling that in a couple weeks, my body, my emotion, all of it will wake back up and feel brilliantly raw and close to the surface. I'll eat strawberries in my kitchen at dusk and ache in the most primal, satisfying way. 

But for now... 

Tonight, all my friends are coming over to have a big champagne happy hour to toast the house. Tomorrow, I'll go down to Vanaheim and try not to barf over every inch of it this time. 

 Rabbit rabbit. What does Charles Wright say? February, you old head turner, cut us some slack.

Cut me some slack.