I’m beginning to think that the only thing I can be sure of are the million little right now’s stacked on each other like a pile of books threatening to topple over.

Act I. The Introduction of Time & Somewhere Else.

We’ve placed ourselves Somewhere Else, somewhere familiar and yet very far away. Somewhere where we can distract ourselves with the joy of our togetherness, here in this wild place. A place where not even Time can pull us out from under this spell — yes, I can see that the realities of life are reaching out to us with their long, spindly fingers, but don’t worry, we are somewhere up on that hill or down on the windswept beach or in that tiny cafe with the best tasting oat milk latte we’ve ever had. Don’t worry, we are Somewhere Else, somewhere that is ours to give meaning to, to call beautiful and wild and our own, forever out of reach of the hands of Time.

The snow that falls outside of my window will not last more than a few hours, I am certain of this, just as I am certain of the coffee next to me being too cold by the time I remember to take my next sip; the hours of the day reach and grab and take and do not apologize for their insatiable hunger, satisfied only by the thoughts that root themselves in fear, fear of remembering everything you’ve convinced yourself you’ve forgotten, just as Time decides to slip out the back door unnoticed.

Act II. I Digress.

Before falling asleep last night, I jotted down more thoughts on Time: what is time, if not something made up? So how is it that time has the ability to move so quickly or slowly or not at all, and how can it do that if it is only made up? Wait, what part of time occurs naturally and what part have we tried to bend to our benefit? (Research this tomorrow). Or maybe it's that time is based off of a feeling, an emotion, off of the happenings of that particular day and the way we respond to it? Maybe a certain emotion piled onto an experience, only gives the illusion of slowing down or stopping time, when in actuality, nothing has changed other than our perception of it? I don't know, I think I might be trying to understand something that was never mean't to be understood. I digress.

Meanwhile, I was wrong about the snow, our bedroom window glows as bright as day, everything but the pond disappearing under a heavy blanket of white.

Act III. Folds of Spring.

Yesterday, there were two herons standing in the field, now there’s just one, hunched over and motionless on the one patch of dry earth. I watch it from my place at the dining room table, the left side of my body warm from the fire that burns hot and orange in our little wood stove.

There are over a dozen clusters of bright yellow daffodils poking out from beneath the snow and I wonder how long we have before the irises come up. Before there are leaves on the trees and we need to turn over our garden beds, mow the lawn, mow it again, then somewhere in between all the mowing, decide what flower to plant and where — hold on! Before any of that, the garden fence needs fixing and are we going to have as many sweet peas as we did last year? Last year we planted a lot, dare I say too many.

Just like that, winter disappears into the folds of spring and we're left standing there, hands covered in dirt, eyes squinting in the direction of the sun, watching the last drop of light slip beneath the promise of tomorrow.

Act IV. What I Know to Be True.

The nightmares that have plagued me since childhood are now mild in comparison to the nightmare I wake into, and the worst part is, there's usually about 8-seconds before my brain is able to discern between what is real and what is not, and then about 10 more minutes before I'm able to get up, make the bed, pull on my sweatshirt, cradle my coffee, and with much reluctance, try and accept what I know to be true.

What else I know to be true: when I’m with my family, I feel loved and purposeful. When I write, I feel bold and imaginative. When I read, I feel engaged and connected. When I tell a friend a hard thing, I feel seen and cared for. When I decide to go to the store on a day I’m feeling anxious, I feel proud and accomplished. When I hear someone speak at a local event, I feel inspired to take action, to dig and dig until my hands reach some kind of opening, discovering that the hope I had been looking for sits just beside the fear and the anger and the irritability that bubbles up when I’m most vulnerable, most overwhelmed by my own expectations of what I think I need to do in order to be who I think I need to be.

My husband just reminded that maybe the way in which I overthink and overwhelm myself is yes, very situational, but also very normal, very human, for instance: maybe having a mood disorder and being chronically ill and anxious and very particular about most things, may play into one’s tendency to overthink and feel overwhelmed, and that maybe I could consider these very-human-things when I’m tempted to judge and critique my “performance” at the end of each day.

Act V. Room to Roam.

Ever so slightly adjacent to the human-ness I just mentioned, is my frustration with transitions. I find them to be sticky and difficult, a place where my emotions are most likely to get muddled up and my overthinking is given more room than it needs to roam.

In this particular transitional pause, I stare at the field that is now free from snow and consider two things: all that I cannot change about this moment and all that I can (with emphasis on the latter).

First, I'll get out of the house. I'll go to the store and I'll find all of the ingredients I need to make chicken noodle soup. Right, ok, did that. Now I'll chop up the carrots and celery and put them in the pot along with a tablespoon of butter, letting it sizzle and soak all of the buttery goodness in. Done, now I'll add the broth and seasoning, let that simmer for awhile, then finally, in goes the pasta and the shredded chicken. And there you go! Soup!

And no, the point isn't to make chicken noodle soup anytime you feel yourself spiraling into a place of no return, it's to do the supportive thing that's right in front of you, whether that’s taking a shower or making some tea or stretching on the floor or listening to sad music and crying or dramatically opening all of the windows in your home so it (and you) can be consumed by the smell of freshly mowed grass.

Act VI. The Meaning I Give Them.

Six books sit in a tidy little stack just in front of me, all of which were purchased Somewhere Else. They are relatively small, paperback, and aside from Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, were all written by author’s originating from the same place. While it's been comforting to have this stack of book as my dining room table writing companions, at some point, they’ll need to make their way to our bookshelf, a much more suitable long-term home.

For now, however, their prolonged presence has got me thinking: why buy books elsewhere, when they can be conveniently purchased from the comfort of my computer, and shipped directly to my home?

I don't know if I have a satisfying answer to this, only that I think it’s in the meaning I give them. Their place of origin has meaning because I want it to; these books are a way for me to conjure up exactly how I felt in a very specific moment, back when we were Somewhere Else, somewhere beautiful and wild and entirely our own, and that feels like reason enough to have lugged them all the way home.

Act VII. A Small Disruption.

The sky says rain while my mind tells me I should go for a walk.

Nothing strenuous, just the one that goes past the houses along the water, down to the marina with the swaying boats, up through the mossy forest, back down and around to where I’ll say hi to the two horses, pause to admire the house that’s painted my favorite shade of blue, just before reaching the field with the apple trees covered in moss and the heron that stands perfectly still and the deer that cautiously glances my way as I climb under the broken fence and make my way through the clusters of yellow and white daffodils, past the stream that feeds into the pond, and onward toward the little red house with the wonky roof where everything that is good and true and mine and real is rubbed raw against Time’s impossibly tight grip.

Talk soon,
Chloe

PS. In honor of giving things meaning just because I want to, Everyone Around Me Dancing by Gia Margaret was the backdrop to the editing of this piece (which was fun and challenging in all of the ways I want the editing process to be)