I'm beginning here, with the fire in the stove still crackling and the wispy fog pressing up against the window and the tiny resilient mushrooms poking up through the dirt and between the small blades of grass — now a vibrant green from the recent shift from blue skies to torrential rain.

I'm beginning here, with my notebook open to a spell I wrote when the full moon was hidden behind clouds and there was a wind so rampant it took down trees which took down power lines, soon blanketing our home in darkness and the quiet absence of electricity, while I crouched on the bench beside the window, striking a match to light a candle, and watching as the soft glow of the flame imprinted itself on the then blank page of my notebook.

I'm beginning here, with an ear to the inner workings of my body, ever-listening for what else it might need as it tells me it is tired, so tired — tired of waiting and holding onto the hollowed promise of an outcome that might not ever be filled.

I'm beginning here, with an attempt to reflect on the writing experiment I held for myself through the month of October, where I wrote a few sentences of prose every day for 31 days — a part of me probably already aware that I wouldn’t want to reflect, that I wouldn’t want to tell the story I told myself I would 31 days ago.

I'm beginning here, with a forgotten agreement: that sometimes my biggest emotions are much easier to digest once distilled down into a smaller container — one or two sentences that can fit nicely in my metaphorical back pocked as I go about my day.

I'm beginning here, with a soft thought that presses up against a sharp thought and the understanding that yes, I'm not sure that one could exist without the other. That yes, the management-of these thoughts often takes up more space than I feel comfortable with — but maybe it's in the daily practice of tending-to them, that I learn to let go of what I once considered to be good and bad, dark and light, soft and sharp.

I'm beginning here, with my attention pulled between the window that looks out onto a field of geese and deer and fallen leaves, and the concept of building a business, and why, after all these years, I still long for something that is my own, something that I can shape and reshape, something that sustains and supports and inspires and even as I say this, I know that it cannot be everything, that I cannot give it everything, and that it would probably be in my best interest to give some of that attention back to the view out of my window, to the projects and experiments that were never mean't to reach completion.

I'm beginning here, with a quiet promise to myself that I will keep writing. That the hardest part is in the starting again, and that the more I start again, the more I allow for more spaciousness between what I tell myself I should write vs. what shape my writing wants to take today.

I'm beginning here, with myself as I am right now, in my pajamas and sitting by the window with Ochi our cat curled up beside me, the day’s expectations pulling at the sleeve of my attention because nothing is ever as it seems and there is always something, be it a task or idea or worry or promise, hovering just below the surface.

I'm beginning here.

Until next time,
Chloe