In Ordinary Time

For my lovely sister, Sara, who teaches me these things as she's learning them herself. I love you.

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Earbuds in place, even though there was nobody in the house, my body felt the urge to get outside and walk and listen, my limbs couped up recovering from a nasty stabbing pain in my heel that made me slow to a snail's pace for a week. That pain, the most frustrating thing in a moment where I needed to walk it out, exhale breath, give my brain a chance to consolidate it's drive, said "slow down". It actually said "slow down, motherfucka, or you are going to reap 10x what you are sowing here." Slow down, sit with it, be in it. There is no avoiding it. Sit down. Heal.

Leaves falling, air crisp-to-lovely, I wove my way around my new section of my new old neighborhood, circling close to home lest the heel rebel, returning waves to people I do not know. It's bizarre to be out in the middle of the day, my normal schedule shot through with extra time, my head uncomfortable and loose in the luxury of making my own hours. I don't like this looseness, this working when I want or need to, this feeling of ambiguity. But ambiguity surrounds me everywhere, all of the conventional things in my life having turned 180, my life in the blue sky. Ambiguity, looseness, the lack of structure, the lack of a task list, no horizon or compass is like warm water, not so much like a bath but of floating. I have always been a girl with a vision and a mission to boot. Now is the preparation time for that uncovering, in these next few months. Waiting to sense the clicking in, listening for that tug at the gut, that inner compass.

Slow down, sit with it, be in it. There is no avoiding it. Sit down. Heal.

Leaves falling, air crisp-to-lovely, listening to these words.

The Gate

BY MARIE HOWE

I had no idea that the gate I would step through

to finally enter this world

would be the space my brother's body made. He was

a little taller than me: a young man

but grown, himself by then,

done at twenty-eight, having folded every sheet,

rinsed every glass he would ever rinse under the cold

and running water.

This is what you have been waiting for, he used to say to me.

And I'd say, What?

And he'd say, This—holding up my cheese and mustard sandwich.

And I'd say, What?

And he'd say, This, sort of looking around.