Anxiety has spread out across the surface of my life tonight, like the glaze a potter applies to a bowl. Liquid under high temperatures, then ridged when left to cool. So many things feel up in the air, suddenly. In transition, in motion. I'm finding myself dreaming, gasping, muttering. Longing for more sleep, for long, uninterrupted times in my studio. But mostly, I'm wishing for that the impossible: for vision that will let me know the outcomes of all the things started now. I'm wishing for certainty and feeling only chaos.
My sister was here the last four days, and it was good. Good to explore new ways of talking, of seeing each other: based less on the past, and more on who we are now. We both took risks to talk with honesty, to say things that mattered, to show small pieces of us that are less than perfect. Over peanut noodles and cheap wine we realized that the story of our childhood was one of comparison and never quite equals in the moment. Now we're trying for new ground, level to start with. Hopeful, unsure of where we'll end up.
My son has a rash. Red spots freckling his body like a dappled sunburn. The doctor says it's benign: the side effects of some virus he picked up. This, combined with teething has him terribly out of sorts. I spend my nights curled round him, trying to weave a cloak of protection with my breath and murmured prayers around his little body. My body aches with loving. I want to sleep. I want him to feel better. I want his teeth to be fully in his mouth. I'm a little on edge.
My husband and I spend the afternoons driving around the country side looking for houses or land to build. We have stacks of timber frame home plans, for-sale-by-owner ads, MLS listings. Each place we visit leaves my heart feeling like a trout pulled up by a reel. I flip flop: wanting it, then not. Imagining home, then feeling impossibly far from it.
This is what it is like: o plunge into the future. To take the next step towards things that matter to me, to my family. I know it is here on the edge, on the verge of new things, that the simple act of committing is more valuable than any crystal ball. I try to take a breath in, and let it go: trusting that the universe will move in response to my movement; that things will turn out fine.